Toddler found locked inside dark classroom at preschool after hours

WESTPORT, Mass. – Police are investigating a Massachusetts preschool after a 3-year-old girl was allegedly left alone in a locked, dark classroom after school hours, MyFoxBoston reports.

Keith Paquette says he arrived at the Westport Country Day School to pick up his daughter Samantha Jo at about 5:15 p.m. on Monday, but found the school closed. He told MyFoxBoston all the doors at the school were locked, the lights were off and there was no sign of his daughter.

Paquette says he frantically searched the playground and the woods before a teacher from the school came back to help him find Samantha Jo. The teacher then heard noises from inside a classroom.

Paquette smashed a window in the school open, and found Samantha Jo inside the darkened school. According to Paquette and the child's mother, Samantha Jo had hid after having an accident in the bathroom and was overlooked when the school closed, according to MyFoxBoston.

However, the school told police they have on record that Samantha was checked out by her grandmother that day. They declined MyFoxBoston's requests for further comment.