'Doing what her boss told her': Daycare worker let young child walk across 6 lanes of busy highway, then lied to cops about what happened, police say

Inset: Halee Russo (Lake County Jail). Background: U.S. Highway 27 near County Road 466A in Fruitland Park, Florida (Google Maps).

A Florida daycare worker is accused of failing to properly supervise a young child, allowing the boy to escape and run across a highway, narrowly avoiding being hit by a car.

Halee Russo, 27, is charged with child neglect without great bodily harm. Concerned motorists began contacting the Fruitland Park Police Department shortly after 11 a.m. Friday after they saw the boy darting across traffic on U.S. Highway 27 near County Road 466A, where the speed limit is 50 mph, a probable cause affidavit said. Some drivers pulled over and got the boy to safety, returning the boy to the daycare unharmed.

Russo told deputies she typically checks to see if the gate from the playground to the parking lot is locked, but she did not do so on the day in question, cops wrote. The defendant initially said the boy escaped while she was tending to other children but he was discovered by a parent near the front door. Russo claimed she ran after the boy five seconds after he opened the gate and caught up to him by the time the parent stopped him.

But cops confronted her with accounts from multiple witnesses who saw the boy run across the highway, meaning there was a much longer period during which the boy was unaccounted for. Russo, who has worked at the daycare since November 2024, became "emotional" and said she was "just doing what her boss told her," the affidavit stated.

Russo said the last time she saw the boy was when he was about to go down a slide. She turned her attention to another child who was upset. She estimated she lost track of the boy for two minutes. Russo claimed her boss told her to lie so the daycare wouldn't be closed. The name of the daycare is redacted from the report.

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The teacher said the gate was locked, so the boy likely crawled underneath it to escape.

"The defendant confirmed the juvenile was solely in her care and she was not providing the juvenile with adequate supervision, putting the well-being of the juvenile at risk," cops wrote.

Officers arrested Russo and took her to the Lake County Jail, where she has since posted a $2,500 bond. Her next court date is set for July 6.