A 12-year-old girl who was reportedly spotted naked wandering through a neighborhood where her mother works at a Temecula school is likely the same girl who went missing from her Murrieta home in December, Patch has learned.
Tracy Lynn Betts, 40, was arrested Thursday afternoon on suspicion of child cruelty after deputies found her daughter alone in a vehicle parked near Vail Elementary School, where the suspect works, according to Riverside County Sheriff's officials.
To read about Thursday's arrest and booking, including arraignment date, please click here.
In December, a 12-year-old girl, whose father identified himself as Carl Betts, was reported missing from her Murrieta home but after a search, she was found at a tailor shop from where she had called home.
Police went to the business off California Oaks Road and Jackson Avenue, and quickly found the girl.
Carl Betts, the girl's father, arrived minutes after the police. Betts held his daughter as she sobbed, "I just want to go home, daddy."
To read more about that Patch story, please click here.
On Thursday, concerned residents in the 29000 block of Avenida De Calzada called 911 when they spotted a girl walking in the area unclothed, rummaging for food in trash bins.
Deputies searched the neighborhood and found the girl nude in a car. After questioning her, they learned her mother was working at the elementary school, where Betts was arrested without incident, authorities said.
Both Tracy L. Betts and Carl Betts have the same address on Engelmann Oak Street in Murrieta.
The number listed for Tracy Betts is the same number provided Patch in December as the one the girl dialed when she asked to use the tailor's phone.
And a foreclosure case filed in civil court in January 2011 names both Carl and Tracy Betts as defendants in the case filed by a credit union.
To see the case, please click here.
