Child Left By Mistake At Oregon Rest Area

Tue., May 30, 2000

From Staff

A 6-year-old girl apparently left at a freeway rest area by mistake was found wandering in a nightgown by a former police officer and his wife on Monday morning, officials said.

Oregon State Police later found the girl’s mother as she was headed back to the rest stop at Deadman Pass on Interstate 84, according to Terry Vandehey, a state police dispatch supervisor.

“It was the old standard: Pull out at a rest stop, go to the bathroom, and the child gets out and goes into the restroom without the parents knowing it,” Vandehey said.

The girl was befriended by Roger Merrill and his wife, Faith, of Greeley, Colo., about 7:40 a.m. Monday after they had watched her walking aimlessly and unattended for several minutes.

“She was starting to cry, whimper,” said Merrill, a former police officer in Redlands, Calif. The child told his wife, “My mama left me.”

The couple took the girl to police in Pendleton, where she was identified as Nicola Polteras.

State troopers found her mother, Marie Contreras of Salt Lake City, when they spotted a vehicle with a Utah license plate on the freeway heading back to the rest area about 10:50 a.m.

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