{"id":247948,"date":"2026-04-27T06:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T06:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/247948\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T06:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T06:27:12","slug":"surfside-couple-in-need-of-help-after-abandoned-kids-show-up-at-their-doorstep-nbc-6-south-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/247948\/","title":{"rendered":"Surfside couple in need of help after abandoned kids show up at their doorstep \u2013 NBC 6 South Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, a Lyft driver called 911 to report he had been kidnapped at gunpoint and forced to drive two men to Miami Beach.<\/p>\n

That rideshare driver<\/a> is Atilio Bellanza, who said the reason he even works late at night is that almost two months ago, their world was turned upside down when he and his wife suddenly found themselves having to care for two girls, on top of also caring for their own two boys.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if the right word is abandonment. I think she chose where to leave them,\u201d Bellanza\u2019s wife, Andrea Leoni, said in Spanish.<\/p>\n

Leoni said that on March 7, her former neighbor and the biological mother of the 5- and 10-year-old girls, Nixmarie Barbara Melendez, left the children at her apartment and never came back.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 5-year-old has autism, for which she\u2019s never received therapy, and both need emotional and behavioral therapy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEarlier this week, a Lyft driver called 911 to report he had been kidnapped at gunpoint and forced to drive two men to Miami Beach.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Leoni said she reached out to the Department of Children and Families while caring for the girls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey immediately came to my house, they checked that they were fine, that they were healthy, that it was a safe home for them, and in about three days they gave me and my husband custody,\u201d Leoni said.<\/p>\n

She said she underwent more than five hours of questioning, a process she says went fast.<\/p>\n

Leoni also told DCF about her brief conversation with Melendez.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat she had neither the desire nor the capacity to be a mother,\u201d Leoni said.<\/p>\n

As for the father, Leoni believes one of the fathers is dead and the other, identified by court documents as Jasson Lopez, called her from prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gave me God’s blessing and thanked my husband and me for what we had done and never called us again,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Melendez also has a third daughter who\u2019s 15 months old and is in the care of her father.<\/p>\n

NBC6 spoke to a woman who said she\u2019s the toddler\u2019s Godmother, Carmen Santamarina. She saw the story that aired on our sister station, Telemundo51, and wanted to speak out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is devastating, that baby\u2026 I mean I love her to death. If you would have seen her at birth, she was an itty-bitty little thing like this, and I can’t imagine any mom not loving her baby,\u201d Santamarina said. \u201cIt’s very sad, even though the baby is in great hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the course of almost two months, Leoni and Bellanza have gotten to know the two older girls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey lack an education; they lack a sense of purpose, because they were clearly abandoned, they were very vulnerable,\u201d Leoni said.<\/p>\n

Leoni started a GoFundMe<\/a> to raise money for basic necessities. She said she had to stop working because the girls require a lot of attention. The family is relying on Bellanza\u2019s income alone as they transition from a family of four to a family of six.<\/p>\n

As they navigate their new normal, Leoni questions the role of the authorities and the mechanisms that are supposed to be in place to protect children.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very unfair that they went through everything they went through, and that no one looked after them,\u201d Leoni said.<\/p>\n

Surfside Police Chief Charles Press said he got a call from one of his sergeants, Marian Cruz, asking what they could do as a police department to try to help the family.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe immediately provided food for them, but it wasn’t enough. So, I jumped on the bandwagon with her. And we have since passed it around the police department to see what we could do as police officers because they are our residents,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Chief Press hopes the community will see their story and step forward to help however they can.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpread the word to South Florida because sometimes bad things happen to good people, and good things turn out after that bad thing. So that’s our hope and our prayer that it turns out that way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Press and Cruz have foundations dedicated to helping people in need. The chief said they\u2019re working to raise money to help the family. If you\u2019d like to help, you can call the Surfside Police Department at 305-861-4862.<\/p>\n

Attempts have been made to locate the biological mom of the girls, but her whereabouts remain unknown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this week, a Lyft driver called 911 to report he had been kidnapped at gunpoint and forced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124,66898],"class_list":["post-247948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-surfside"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247948","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=247948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}