This story may seem funny at first, but it’s actually pretty heartbreaking. According to CBS News, 4-year-old Hayden Wright of Chattanooga, Tennessee, was found wandering around his neighborhood in the middle of the night wearing a little girl’s dress and drinking a can of Bud Light in hand.
Police say Hayden snuck out of his house, despite the childproof covers that his mother, 21-year-old April Wright, installed on their doorknobs. He then took a beer from his grandfather’s cooler out back, somehow opened it, and drank half. Then he wandered into a neighbor’s house, where he stole Christmas gifts, including a little girl’s dress that he put on.
Here’s where it gets depressing: his mother says that his behavior is an attempt to get in trouble so that he can go to jail, where his father is. She woke up at 1:45 a.m. and panicked when she realized he was missing. Hayden was taken to a hospital and treated for alcohol consumption.
“My biggest concern was him being out there, getting kidnapped, getting run over, the alcohol, having to have his stomach pumped,” April said.
Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Janice Atkinson says the incident is being investigated, but the department declined to release the report. April says she met with child protective services and was told she will get to keep custody of her son.
