A 9-year-old boy is safe after being found walking alone along a busy road in Estero on Tuesday. Lee County deputies said the situation quickly escalated from a good Samaritan stop to a child abuse investigation and arrest.<\/p>\n
The boy told police he was kicked out of his home for having bad grades.<\/p>\n
A passerby brought him to a nearby McDonald’s, where she called 911. The police report stated the boy was wearing just boxers, a long-sleeve shirt, and one shoe.<\/p>\n
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office said Juan Matias Nolasco is now behind bars, accused of child abuse. They reported the boy had been tied to a chair, beaten with a belt, and had bruises all over his body.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“I just feel so sorry for him,” said Skip Hampton, a regular McDonald’s customer.<\/p>\n
Hampton said he would have stopped to try to see what was wrong and to help.<\/p>\n
The Sheriff’s Office confirmed that a woman found the boy and stayed with him at the McDonald’s until deputies arrived.<\/p>\n
Hampton, who visits the McDonald’s three or four times a day, said it was a blessing the boy was kicked out.<\/p>\n
“If he was kicked out, he was so lucky,” he said.<\/p>\n
Hampton expressed gratitude for the woman who found the boy, saying he would have done the same thing to help.<\/p>\n
The Department of Children and Families placed the child in emergency care. Due to Marsy’s Law, his identity is being protected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
WINK News reached out to the woman for comment and did not receive a response.<\/p>\n
Community members like Hampton said stepping in can make all the difference. The investigation remains ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 9-year-old boy is safe after being found walking alone along a busy road in Estero on Tuesday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[69922,209,211,210,44641,10124,28,61399],"class_list":["post-144198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-adverse-childhood-experiences","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-child-welfare","tag-estero","tag-florida","tag-mcdonald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}