Police Friday were investigating the mysterious disappearance of a toddler who was discovered unharmed-covered with garbage and crying for his mother-in a building`s trash compactor after vanishing 16 hours earlier from his father`s front door at the Robert Taylor Homes.
Twenty-month-old Tyrone Humphrey Jr., who lives with his mother at 5157 S. Emerald Ave., was listed in good condition Friday afternoon at LaRabida Children`s Hospital, said hospital spokeswoman Mary Fletsch.
Tyrone disappeared from his father`s 13th-floor apartment at 5247 S. Federal St. around 8:45 p.m. Wednesday after the boy and his cousins wandered outside to play on the enclosed balcony, said family friend Howard Baker.
Baker, who said he was inside playing Nintendo with the boy`s father, stepped outside to usher the children back in. Baker said he turned his back for a minute to take charge of one group of kids and Tyrone was gone.
”Someone just got him,” said Baker, who lives with Tyrone`s father, Tyrone Humphrey Sr. ”I don`t understand this. We don`t have any enemies. We`re not into drugs. And we`re not gang-affiliated. But someone snatched the kid from our front door.”
For more than 12 hours Wednesday and Thursday, friends and city and Chicago Housing Authority police scoured the building, searching neighboring apartments, incinerators, sewers and the garbage compactor in vain for the missing toddler, said John Chamberlin, Chicago police youth division commander. He said Tyrone was not in the compactor when police searched it.
”A youngster that age doesn`t wander off very far,” Chamberlin said.
”He doesn`t navigate the stairways or elevators. So when a child that young disappears, you can bet that someone of voting age was involved.”
Tyrone remained missing until 2:30 p.m. Thursday when Michael Brown, the building`s janitor, heard a baby`s cries as he was emptying the garbage compactor, a metal contraption that grinds the building`s garbage after it is dumped in through a chute.
Brown dug through the piles of stinking garbage until he found a badly frightened Tyrone.
”He was covered with trash, and he was hungry,” Brown said. ”He kept asking for his bottle and saying, `BaBa! BaBa!` ”
Brown said he was certain the baby arrived there through the garbage chute that connects to each of the building`s 15 floors.
However Tyrone landed in the dumpster, family and friends remain convinced the child was kidnapped by a stranger. Baker said the baby`s father took a lie detector test administered by police Friday afternoon to prove his innocence. Police would not comment on the investigation.
”Call us careless,” Baker said. ”But don`t blame us for this, please.”
