They Forgot…

LAFAYETTE, WALKER COUNTY, GA. (WRCB)– A Lafayette couple is facing charges after leaving their two-year-old grandson in a Wal-mart parking lot.

The boy was left sitting in a shopping cart, in freezing temperatures.

His grandparents told police they simply forgot to take him home.

Its video from inside the Lafayette Wal- mart Sunday, just before noon that shows Terry and Lisa Templeton shop, check out and head to their car.

The 48-year-old grandfather loads the trunk and then returns the shopping cart, leaving his two-year-old grandson in the child’s seat.

In the video, you see Terry Templeton return to the couple’s red car.

Four minutes pass and Templeton gets out of the car and walks back into the store, not giving his grandson one look.

While the boy’s grandmother is still in the car, a stranger notices the boy is alone.

“Waited around at the buggy for a few minutes to see if anyone would come back, they didn’t, so he picked the child up and took it to the manager,” says Detective Darin Kelley.

Store managers used an intercom system hoping to alert the boy’s parents.

But no one responded to the page, not even Terry Templeton who was inside Wal-mart.

Thirty-three minutes after parking his shopping cart, Templeton exits the store and he and his wife drive off.

Eventually, they returned for the boy.

Detective Darin Kelley contacted the boy’s mother, who told him her mother and stepfather were babysitting while she worked.

“She said here in the last few months, that they had been very dependent on prescription drugs,” says Detective Kelley.

Kelley says he doesn’t know if the two were under the influence. But, he considers their grandson lucky, lucky he didn’t fall into the wrong hands.

“I’m just glad that there are other people out there that saw that too, and they came forward. It helped us out tremendously,” says Detective Kelley.

The Templeton’s were originally charged with cruelty to children.

The charge was lowered to reckless conduct, because Georgia law does not allow for cruelty charges if a child is left.

We spoke to the boy’s mother Monday afternoon off camera.

She did not want to comment on her parents’ arrest, but said she is thankful for the people who got her son out of harm’s way.