Man Caught His Close Friend Walking Out Of 4-Year-Old Daughter's Room While She Was Sleeping
Her husband caught his friend before anything happened, but now the couple is searching for the best way to ensure their daughter's safety.
Prostock-studio / Shutterstock A parent's worst nightmare came true after a husband and wife found out that a close friend was a danger to their four-year-old daughter. Posting to the subreddit "r/legaladvice," an online public forum where people can share their situations and ask how to proceed legally, a woman shared that she and her husband were unsure how to go about making sure that a family friend was no longer allowed access to their young daughter.
Her husband caught a close friend walking out of his daughter's room while she was sleeping.
In her Reddit post, she explained that during a family get-together, their four-year-old daughter had been in her room, asleep. During that time, one of her husband's close friends, who had been over at their home, suddenly disappeared.
At first, she and her husband assumed that this "close friend" had simply gone inside the house to get a drink or use the bathroom, but when her husband decided to head inside the house to use the bathroom as well, the sight he found was more than concerning.
"My husband decided he needed to use the bathroom as well so was waiting, but he was taking a while so he went inside to check. That’s when he caught him leaving the room," she recalled.
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Her husband immediately confronted his friend, demanding to know what he'd been doing in his four-year-old daughter's room. Caught off guard, her husband's friend began acting flustered and couldn't give a straight answer.
Thankfully, the couple had a nanny cam in their daughter's room and were able to watch the footage to see what the family friend had done to their daughter. They saw that he'd touched the little girl's face, walked back out to check if anyone was around, and then went back into her room and grabbed her hand. His efforts were quickly thwarted when her husband eventually started walking toward the room and scared his friend away.
"He was in my kid's room for no longer than two minutes and, luckily, my daughter had no idea what happened," she continued in her post. "There is no doubt in my mind that he was predating on my daughter and testing to see if she would wake up."
Her husband and brother-in-law promptly kicked the friend out of their home and banned them permanently from their lives.
"We will be filing a police report tonight, but do we have enough to file a civil restraining order as well?" the mother questioned.
She insisted that her husband's friend would no longer have access to their daughter, but wondered if there were other options that she and her husband could pursue to make sure that there's a legal precedent in place as well.
In the comments section, many people provided suggestions that the parents could use to ensure their daughter's safety.
"I'm a police dispatcher. If this happened in my jurisdiction they'd take your statement, talk to him, and note in the report that no offense occurred. If you have the recordings submit those because it's evidence," one Reddit user wrote. "You would not be able to get a restraining order but it's good to build a paper trail. I'd also privately talk to anyone else in your circle with kids."
Another user added, "You can make a complaint to the police if you like. What your former friend did is creepy but legal. You also won't be granted a civil restraining order against him. You can limit his access to your child but you have no way of preventing him from coming into contact with other children."
"Documentation is still a good thing. If someone else comes to police with a bigger claim there is now history to back up what this guy is capable of," a third user chimed in.
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The best action that these parents could've taken was banning their former friend from their home and refusing to let him have any contact with their daughter.
Thankfully, nothing nefarious or concerning happened, and their daughter is none the wiser. Understandably, these parents would be trying to take every conceivable suggestion and solution into consideration to make sure that something this frightening would never happen again.
Despite the legal uncertainties, the couple's persistence to prioritize their daughter's safety, no matter what speaks to the devoted and unrelenting parental instincts that take over, especially in the face of danger and adversity.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.