Mother accused of abandoning child on highway during tantrum, falsely reports kidnapping

A mother has been arrested after allowing her son, who threw a tantrum, to run off into the night along a major roadway and falsely reported a kidnapping, authorities said.

The St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office in Louisiana said deputies responded to a call on Nov. 5 around 1 a.m. about the reported kidnapping of a young child in the area of U.S. 190 and Industrial Road in Eunice, according to a release.

Artasia Quantaya Viges reportedly told officials that “individuals in an older model truck had kidnapped her son as she was parked on the roadway attending to a deflated tire.”

However, almost immediately after arriving on the scene, deputies learned the unattended child was found by citizens in the parking lot of Heinen Medical Clinic with abrasion injuries to his knees.

“The child stated to officers that his mother ‘ran him over’ and left him on the side of the road,” deputies said. The boy was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

With the “vast disparity” in statements, the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office Juvenile Detectives were called in to investigate, the release stated.

An interview with Viges revealed there was no kidnapping and that the child was left “unattended along a major roadway and allowed to run off in the night.”

“What started as a disagreement between a mother and a child became a bizarre reaction to the child having a tantrum,” officials determined.

Deputies said that as the mother pulled the car over, the child, “obviously not properly restrained,” bailed out of the car before it came to a stop, resulting in the injury to the child’s knees.

“The mother chose to leave the child out of the car, allowing him to run off in the dark, along major roadways,” the report concluded. “The mother admitted to detectives that she did not attempt to go after him and ultimately lost sight of him.”

Viges was subsequently arrested, and an investigation into the incident is ongoing.