Mother accused of abandoning small children at Thornton gas station | News

THORNTON, Colo. -- Thornton police said a mother left her two little boys inside her van at the Western Gas Station on Thornton Parkway at around 12:30 p.m. Saturday.

The boys, just five and two were discovered by gas station employees who were trying to tow the van because it had been parked in their lot for several hours.

"I just ask the manager what are they doing? There's kids inside? She said the kids are in their car seats," said Hovhannes Muradyan, an employee at Western Gas Station in Thornton.

Police said the boys were bundled up in coats inside the van along with their mother's purse wallet and keys. But, police said there was no sign of their mother, 25-year-old Sarah Hatfield.

For gas station employees the discovery of the children left alone was surprising.

"That for me is terrible, is terrible," Muradyan said.

Officers started a search for Hatfield around the Thornton area and were finally able to locate the boys' father who then told police that a hand gun was also missing from their home.

Then 11 hours after Hatfield went missing on Saturday afternoon, a security guard at National Jewish Hospital in Denver called police and said he had found Sarah Hatfield near the hospital at around 11:45 p.m.

The hospital is located about 12 miles from where she had left her children. Detectives said Hatfield was not armed or injured and she did not say why she had left her two boys inside her van at a gas station.

We tried to get answers at the family's home on Sunday. A friend of the family answered the door and said Hatfield's husband was the only one who could talk about what happened and he was out "taking care of the business at hand."

Hatfield is being held at the Adams County Detention and faces child abuse charges.