Missing boy returned safe

Friday, Nov. 8, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

A 7-year-old Las Vegas boy, missing for more than a day, was returned home by the baby sitter who had taken him.

Kenneth Leander Crockett was last seen Wednesday at University Medical Center's pediatric ward with his baby sitter, 28-year-old Cathy Nance, who lived on the same street as the boy's family. When Nance failed to return the boy to his parents at 2 a.m. Thursday, they called Metro Police.

Nance didn't have a car, so she used cabs and Citizens Area Transit buses to get around, police said. That's the first place detectives with the missing persons detail looked, Lt. Brad Simpson said.

What the boy's parents and police didn't know was that Nance had taken Kenneth to a friend's house and dropped him off. Then she left, Simpson said.

About 6:05 p.m. Thursday, Nance picked up the boy and took him home to his parents, he said.

No charges are being filed against Nance, he said, because the boy was unharmed.

"The kid was taken well care of," Simpson said. "He was happy as a lamb because the other person took good care of him. He was interviewed by detectives last night and said he had a good time, that they had gone to Burger King for dinner."

Nance had been caring for the boy for a week before he turned up missing. Simpson warned parents to be careful about who they leave their children with.

"These parents needed someone to take care of (their son)," he said. "They didn't know this woman as well as they should have, but there wasn't any crime committed."