high flying healthcare exec wife Sara Sommers Wilks<\/a>, of Texas, gave the stunning explanation to police waiting with their child when they returned to her around noon on October 10 \u2014 nearly an hour after they allegedly left the baby girl alone while they went for a walk down Miramar Beach with their three older kids.<\/p>\nSara Sommers Wilks gave the excuse to police after she walked off with her 3 older kids. Walton County Sheriff’s Office<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Wilks stated that the infant usually naps during this time and was asleep when they left the infant in the tent unattended,\u201d an arrest report from the Walton County Sheriff\u2019s Office obtained by The Post read.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe defendant stated that they lost track of time and did not realize how long they had been gone,\u201d the report added, noting the parents left with their kids around 11:10 a.m., and did not return until around 12:06 p.m.<\/p>\n
Witnesses watched the parents walk off down the beach with their three older kids in tow \u2014 with Wilks telling investigators the older kids had \u201crun off\u201d first, and they chased after them and carried on for a walk together while their baby was bedded down to sleep.<\/p>\n
When bystanders realized a baby had been left alone under the tent \u2013 with its parents nowhere in sight for some time \u2014 they flagged down a security guard from a nearby hotel and the police were called.<\/p>\n
Good Samaritans intervened to help the baby, who was left on a beach alone. Walton County Sheriff’s Office<\/p>\n
Good Samaritans scooped up the baby girl and tended to her while they waited for police or the parents to arrive \u2013 with Wilks and Sommers, 40 and 37, being arrested when they came walking back. The baby was found to be healthy and unharmed.<\/p>\n
They were charged with neglect without great bodily harm and spent a night in jail before posting $1,000 bail, while their four kids were held by child services until a relative picked them up.<\/p>\n
But some people questioned whether the law enforcement response and charges were over the top \u2013 with some commenters on a sheriff\u2019s office Facebook post about the arrest saying that only a few decades ago their parents would have done the same with them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn today\u2019s society, this is crazy. In the 80s, people would have said \u2018Well it was sleeping. It didn\u2019t miss anything,\u2019\u201d one person wrote. \u201cIn Florida we would say something like \u2018We put a blanket on him to keep away the seagulls.\u2019 When I was 4 and my mom stuck me on a plane alone from Fl- St. Louis. Just a kiss and some crayons!\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cI don\u2019t think they meant to be neglectful. I can easily see how this would happen on the beach with a napping little one,\u201d another wrote. \u201cI don\u2019t know why one parent didn\u2019t stay closer by, but I am also not a fan of the law intervening on families.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the baby had been harmed or hurt, then the story may be different, but if baby was OK, I think the law should\u2019ve stayed out of it,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n
Internet sleuths were split, with some saying Brian and Sarah didn\u2019t intend to neglect their child. Walton County Sheriff’s Office<\/p>\n
Still, others thought leaving an infant unattended on a public beach was unacceptable \u2013 no matter what year it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a mother, this blows my mind I can\u2019t even use the bathroom without freaking out without having eyes on my daughter. That poor baby,\u201d one person wrote<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The parents who left their infant alone on a Florida beach thought it wouldn\u2019t be a problem because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[10868,294,3118,11788,27,29,28,734],"class_list":{"0":"post-14453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-beaches","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-motherhood","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-texas-headlines","14":"tag-texas-news","15":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}