Mom Leaves Child, 3, Home Alone To Shop At Joliet Walmart: JPD

JOLIET — The Joliet Police Department has made one of its first child endangerment arrests of 2025, arresting 32-year-old Joliet mother Emili Pacheco-Rodriguez after she left her 3-year-old all alone in their apartment building so she could do some shopping at Walmart earlier this week, the Joliet police noted.

According to the police reports from department spokesman Dwayne English, at 12:51 p.m. Jan. 13, officers responded to an apartment in the 1000 block of Parkwood Drive for a welfare check after learning that a small child was standing outside an apartment crying and appeared to be distressed.

The officers found that the door to the apartment was wide open, according to police. Officers conducted a welfare check inside the apartment and located a 3-year-old child asleep in a bedroom. No one else was in the apartment.

The officers determined that Pacheco-Rodriguez was the mother of the child.

According to English, officers spoke to her by phone, and she indicated that she had been shopping at Walmart in Joliet. Officers waited approximately an hour for Pacheco-Rodríguez to return to the apartment, and she was placed into custody without incident.

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services was notified. A different family member took custody of the child.