The Hazards Around the Home

The location of the condo intensified the concern.

The unit was on the second floor. A young child leaving the residence alone would have to negotiate an elevated stairway before reaching ground level.

Behind the condominium building was a canal. According to the arrest-report information later quoted by local news outlets, the water was within roughly 25 yards of the building.

Nearby roads created another risk. Club House Drive serves as a busy route through that part of Palm Coast, and the entrance to the complex opened toward traffic.

The toddler had already been observed near the roadway by the time Lofaro encountered him.

Nothing catastrophic happened. The child was not reported injured when deputies took custody of him. But the neglect investigation focused heavily on the hazards he had been able to reach without an adult knowing he was gone.

Questions About Food and Care

Deputies also asked when the boy had last eaten.

Tucci could not provide a clear breakfast time because she said she had been asleep. When asked about food, she pointed toward an open box of cereal on the floor and suggested that he may have eaten from it.

She could not say with certainty whether he actually had.

The state of the child's diaper became another part of the deputies' concern. The good Samaritan had found him wearing dirty pajamas and a very soiled diaper, and deputies later discussed obtaining diapers and wipes so they could change him.

These details did not prove by themselves how long the child had been alone, but they became part of the overall picture investigators considered when deciding whether the circumstances met the threshold for a neglect charge.

Conditions Observed Inside the Residence

Deputies also documented the interior of the condo.

According to reporting based on the sheriff's office and arrest documents, they saw trash and food scattered on the floors. They also reported open containers of alcohol inside the residence.

When they looked in the child's room, deputies said they did not observe clothing for him there.

Those observations were later cited publicly as additional factors in the investigation. They should be described precisely: officers reported what they saw during that visit. The observations do not establish every detail of how the home was normally maintained or what possessions may have been stored elsewhere.

Still, when combined with a two-year-old outside alone, an open front door, known door-opening behavior and the nearby traffic, stairs and canal, the condition of the residence contributed to the deputies' conclusion that further intervention was necessary.

DCF Becomes Involved

The Florida Department of Children and Families was contacted while deputies were still trying to identify the boy's home.

Body-camera dialogue shows that the immediate child-welfare plan was still developing during the encounter. At one point, Tucci asked whether her son was being permanently removed, and a deputy explained that a parenting or safety plan was being developed and that the situation did not automatically mean she would permanently lose custody.

Later public reporting stated that DCF took custody of the boy while the investigation proceeded and began working on a safe parenting plan.

Those two descriptions are not necessarily contradictory. Emergency custody and a temporary safety arrangement can occur while longer-term placement and parental rights remain unresolved.

Nothing in the available reporting reviewed for this account establishes that Tucci permanently lost her parental rights because of the July 1 incident.

The Drug-Test Issue

Substance use became another part of the case, but the details require careful wording.

According to reports based on the sheriff's office, Tucci told a DCF investigator that she had tested positive for THC and alcohol several days earlier. During the July 1 encounter, an on-site test reportedly returned a positive result for methadone.

Methadone is a controlled medication, but it also has legitimate medical uses. It may be prescribed for pain and is widely used as medication for opioid-use disorder. A positive test therefore does not establish, without additional evidence, that the drug was illegally obtained or that the person tested was impaired.

The body-camera transcript contains a discussion about kratom, ADHD and Tucci's reasons for using supplements or alternatives to prescription medication. That exchange provides context to what deputies were considering, but it does not establish a medical diagnosis, a toxicological cause of her deep sleep or a direct causal link between any particular substance and the child's exit from the apartment.

For that reason, the strongest factual account is narrower: Tucci said she had recently tested positive for THC and alcohol, and the on-site DCF test was reported as positive for methadone.

Why Deputies Decided to Arrest Her

Tucci repeatedly told deputies that she had simply fallen asleep.

From her perspective, the event was an accident caused by a child who had learned how to unlock the door and a mother who slept through his departure.

The deputies looked at the circumstances differently.

They focused on the fact that Tucci already knew the toddler could manipulate the lock. They saw no effective childproof barrier that would prevent him from leaving. They considered the long period during which she had not checked on him. They considered the condition in which he was found and the hazards immediately surrounding the property.

A deputy explained that the concern was not only that the boy had managed to leave. It was that the known risk had not been adequately addressed before he gained access to stairs, water and traffic without supervision.

Tucci pushed back on parts of that reasoning. She said she could not control how deeply she slept and suggested that adding another lock could create housing problems. She also emphasized the small size of the apartment and appeared to believe that there was only so much the child could do inside without her.

The deputy responded that the situation could have ended much worse.

The Arrest

Deputies ultimately placed Tucci under arrest.

She was charged with neglect of a child without great bodily harm, a felony under Florida law.

Before putting her in the patrol vehicle, a deputy asked the standard custodial questions about whether she had anything on her person that could create additional problems when she reached the jail. Tucci denied possessing contraband and denied needing medical treatment.