Mistaken Kidnapping Call Leads Police to Finding Missing Child in Family's Repossessed Car

Mar. 15, 2025

Stock photo of police sirens.Photo:avid_creative/Getty

avid_creative/Getty

A child who fell asleep in his family’s car woke up in an impound lot the next day after the vehicle had been repossessed, leading to a mistaken kidnapping case.

The Lakewood Police Department in Denver, Colo. tells PEOPLE that they were contacted on Saturday, Oct. 19 after reports of a car being stolen with a child, 13-year-old Mario Mustata, inside.

“Our sergeant in charge made the quick decision to treat this as a legitimate kidnapping and quickly gathered all available LPD resources,” John Romero, a public information officer for the Lakewood PD, tells PEOPLE.

Per the news station, Mustata’s family feared he had been kidnapped and that their car had been stolen during a stop on the family’s road trip. The vehicle, however, had been repossessed overnight on Friday, Oct. 18.

An hour later after the initial kidnapping reports, the vehicle and child were found 12 miles from the hotel in an impound lot in Denver’s Globeville neighborhood thanks to a tracking system in the car and assistance from the Denver Police Department, NBC affiliate9 Newsreported.

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“The driver of the tow truck was just as shocked when we informed him that a boy was in the back seat,” Romero tells PEOPLE. “The boy’s parents informed us that they were preparing to leave for the East Coast and that he had been up playing Fortnight all night.”

Romero says that he has “never seen anything like this” before. “It was an honest mistake,” he says, adding, “Thankfully because the sergeant in charge acted quickly and decisively, we were able to locate the boy within twenty minutes and reunite him with his family.”

source: people.com