Texas couple prove that in real life, a ‘Home Alone’ stunt will land you in jail after moving out without telling their 12-year-old son

A couple in Texas were at the center of a child endangerment charge that gets all the more confusing the more information about it is revealed. All that is known for sure now is that on Oct. 17, police were called to an empty apartment in Copperas Cove where an abandoned 12-year-old boy stood alone.

The police were quickly able to ascertain that the apartment once belonged to the boy’s mother, Erica Renee Sanders, and her boyfriend, Keven Dwayne Adams. The police then reportedly got the couple on the phone, and they denied trying to abandon the boy. According to Adams, Sanders was being falsely accused of trying to endanger her child.

In the call, Adams explained to the police that there had been an actual plan that just wasn’t realized. When the boy left school that particular day, Adams claimed his older brother was supposed to pick him up and direct him to their new home. But when the police asked the older brother, an affidavit obtained by Live 5 News revealed that he had no knowledge of the claims being made by Adams.

There have been disturbing accounts of child neglect recently, and the police department clearly didn’t want to wait until things got worse, so the couple was quickly arrested. Their official charge is abandoning and endangering a child without intent to return — which has sometimes been shown to be the first step toward harming a child in far more sinister ways.

Since Christmas is fast approaching, most families around the world will choose to celebrate the holidays with gifts, Mariah Carey, and perhaps rewatching Home Alone. Of course, watching the film so many times has turned even the most ardent fans of the movies into nitpickers, constantly questioning whether those parents should be in jail — especially in the sequel. But most of us only thought that was a worthy pastime because that could never actually happen in real life. Well, we were wrong.

But unlike the McCallister family, who are also shown trying to go back home for their beloved Kevin, in this particular family, it seems chasing the boy out was a worrying trend that even the neighbors had started noticing. A neighbor reportedly told the police that the two had a reputation in their complex for kicking the boy out whenever they had family issues.

The first officials who tried to track the couple down were actually from Child Protective Services, but after the two refused to give their exact whereabouts following an abrupt move, the only choice left was to contact the police.

Now Adams and Sanders are booked and waiting for their court date, where they’ll have to post bail and make certain promises to the court about their availability — something they couldn’t even guarantee the child they were raising. The only sad part about this story is the 12-year-old boy, because unlike these adults who should know better, he is still yet to understand the world and how complicated the people who populate it are. Hopefully, he will turn out alright regardless of all these challenges.