Man charged after toddler found wandering halls of apartment building alone

TORONTO – A Woodstock, Ont., man has been charged with leaving a toddler unattended after a three-year-old boy was found wandering the hallways of an apartment building Sunday.

Police were called to the James Street apartment building in Woodstock on Sunday afternoon. They found the child and discovered he had been left alone at the apartment.

Now, 53-year-old Wade Messenger has been charged with failing to provide the necessaries of life.

This is the third time in the last week a child has been found alone by police in southern Ontario. On Feb. 19, three-year-old Elijah Marsh wandered away from a relative’s apartment building on Neptune Drive in Toronto around 4 a.m. He was found roughly six hours later freezing in the snow and later died in hospital.

A naked toddler was found in Etobicoke on Feb. 20. The four-year-old boy was found near Twelfth Street and Lake Shore Boulevard by a neighbour shortly after 2 p.m.. Police found the toddler’s mother, who has been charged with abandonment.