On a night when most kids are out having fun, trick-or-treating, Julio Reyes' kids are in the car of the county and he is at the county jail.
Milpitas police say 29-year-old Julio Reyes drove his two kids to North Hillview Dr. and left them in his SUV. It was 10 p.m. Tuesday and Reyes was off to visit a friend in the area.
Police got a call from a concerned neighbor who noticed the kids at 12:42 p.m. the next afternoon.
"The officers show up and they find a 10-year-old female and the 8-year-old male all by themselves in the car and they're tired, and they're cold, and they're hungry," Lt. Sandy Holliday said.
The kids were taken into protective custody. The officers bought them food while the department tried to track down Reyes.
"We called local hospitals, we called both Alameda County and Santa Clara County to see if he was in custody, with no luck," Lt. Holliday said.
Finally Wednesday night, more than 24 hours after police say he left his kids, Reyes called them to report his vehicle and children missing.
The neighbor who called police didn't want to be on camera, but told me she heard honking from the SUV and saw little feet pressed up against the horn. She figured it was a neighbor's car. But a nagging feeling that something just wasn't right made her call 911.
Neighbor Lionel Briones saw police towing the car and was saddened to hear about the kids.
"I work for a school district so it's just hard to, it's difficult to hear that a parent would actually do that to their own kids," Briones said.
The children's' mother was contacted and met with police. But the boy and girl remain in the care of the department of family and children's services while police investigate.
