Photo: Montgomery County Sheriff's Office / YouTube
She was smiling gleefully as she abandoned the child.
By NyRee Ausler — Written on Apr 25, 2023
Children are vulnerable and adults have a duty to protect them from harm. That’s why people were so surprised when a recent video emerged of a woman dropping a toddler off on a stranger’s porch in the dead of night.
The clip from a Ring doorbell was shared on a TikTok account called "@copstv49" and showed a woman running toward a front porch with a child’s backpack in one hand and a small boy dangling as she held him by his arm in the other. The manner in which she carried him was painful to watch.
When she got to the front door, she smiled as she feverishly knocked on the door and rang the doorbell before turning around and fleeing the scene. As she disappeared from sight, the little boy looked after her, confused, and likely afraid.
The last viewers see of her is her white sedan speeding away from the home. The homeowners eventually answered the door to find the child they didn’t know standing there.
The woman left a 2-year-old child at a stranger's doorstep.
Courtney Fisher, a reporter for KTRK Houston, was looking into the situation when it occurred back in October 2018 and went door-to-door, asking residents if they knew the boy. She ran across a man named Willie Simmons who happened to be the child’s father.
He lives next door to the house where the woman, who was identified to be then-20-year-old Keairra Woods, left his son. Willie told reporters, “I’m angry. I’m upset.”
The abandoned boy’s name is Royal Prince Simmons and Woods was a friend of the toddler’s mother, who had asked her to drop him off at his father’s house. The woman mistakenly left the 2-year-old at the wrong address and didn’t bother to confirm that his dad was there before taking off.
Willie angrily said, “Just imagine if my nice neighbors weren’t there. My son would have wandered in the street and got hit. Just imagine nobody would have been out here… he just would have been walking.”
It’s hard to fathom how someone could leave a child alone in the dark and neglect to make sure they are taken safely inside the home before leaving. Viewers overwhelmingly commented that the woman should be locked up for what she did and wanted the father to win custody of the child since they believed he had been neglected.
Keairra Woods spoke out about the situation, and said 'It wasn't like that.'
Although it's unclear whether she went to jail or even got charged for anything — despite potentially facing felony abandonment charges — Woods did do an exclusive interview with Inside Edition where she talks about the video and what happened that night — blaming everything on the GPS and Royal's mother who was hospitalized at the time.
"Everything was blown out of proportion," she said, claiming that she had only been following the GPS and her friend's instructions. "I followed the GPS. Mind you, I'm still on the phone with her, so by the time I get to the house, I say, 'Well I just pulled up to the house.' She said, 'Okay, get out the car, get his bag, and go to the door.'"
Her friend had given Woods strict instructions not to interact with the boy's stepmother who had a restraining order on Royal's biological mom, which is why she sprinted away after dropping the boy off — she also claimed that another reason was that it was cold outside.
“She said, 'Leave him on the porch.' I said, 'Are you sure you want me to leave your child on the porch?’ She said, 'Yes!'" Woods told Inside Edition. "I didn’t stay at the door because I seen her coming halfway to the door."
Woods believes that her friend gave her the wrong address and also should have known that she was at the wrong house because Woods described how many cars were outside.
"I say 'It's like five cars out here, a red car, a black car and a white car, and it's like two rows of cars.' She said 'OK.' That should have let you know I was at the wrong house then because you know your baby daddy don't drive so many cars," she explained in the interview.
It's unclear whether the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office ever pressed charges against the woman, and Royal Prince's mother agrees that it was all a huge misunderstanding, so it could all be chalked up to a scary accident that thankfully resulted in no one being hurt.
NyRee Ausler is a writer from Seattle, Washington, and author of seven books. She covers lifestyle and entertainment and news, as well as navigating the workplace and social issues.