Arlington police are investigating a bizarre crime that started when a homeowner called 911 to report a unknown woman and toddler inside her house.
Officers responded to the home on Spring Miller Court around 8:30 Sunday night, according to police.
Tia Crawford said when she got to her house, there was a woman inside.
Crawford told NBC 5 the woman let her dogs out front and sat on the porch.
"I kept hearing a cry, a baby crying, baby crying, and it sounded like it was coming from the warehouses," Crawford said.
But, it was when her dog began barking at the front door, she realized something was wrong.
Crawford saw a little boy, wearing only a diaper, standing inside her home.
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She went inside.
"And, I don't know where she came from, I didn't see - I was turned around looking and the baby and there she was," Crawford said.
Police have identified the woman inside her home as Amanda Lynn Smith.
"It was very terrifying," Crawford said. "I think I screamed when I first saw her in the house. I just remember the screeching scream was like a horror movie."
Crawford believe Smith was able to sneak inside through an unlocked back door.
She was able to get Smith out of her house and yelled for her husband, who also confronted Smith, but she didn't leave the property.
Crawford told NBC 5 during the encounter, Smith was hissing and at one point threatened to kill her and her husband.
"Finally we see, she's in the backyard and she is just sitting there holding the baby, just sitting in the chair by the pool," Crawford said.
Officers arrived to find her in the back, and, when confronted, say she tried to flee.
"She was trying to jump over the fence. At that point myself and one of the other officers immediately grabbed her arms was able to pry the baby free," Officer Nicole Newton said.
Newton stayed with the child, comforting him for hours after his mother was arrested.
"It's heartbreaking," Newton said. "It is to see an innocent child involved and he has no idea what's going on. But the only thing you can do is try and help the baby feel at that moment that he's safe and he's protected. Obviously, he was very upset. He was screaming, you know, 'mama' during the whole altercation."
It was hours later, after police made contact with the child's grandparent, that they learned Smith possibly had a second child in her custody.
When questioned, Smith told officers the other baby was with a grandparent, according to police, but she eventually told them she left the infant behind an auto repair shop nearby, according to Arlington Police Lt. Chris Cook.
Police searched the area and found the 9-month-old face down, covered in bug bites and wearing only a diaper beneath a stroller behind a dilapidated fence just feet from a creek, according to Cook.
Newton, who was off-duty at the time the second child was found, said it's a miracle he was OK.
"It began to rain around probably one 1 a.m.," Newton said.
For Crawford, the only good to come out of the terrifying incident inside her home is that both children are safe.
"It's the big thing - the children, and I couldn't imagine any mother doing this to their kids," Crawford said.
Smith faces two counts of abandonment, child endangerment, as well as, charges for resisting arrest, criminal trespass and failure to identify. She's currently being held in the Arlington City Jail.
