2 Women Try to Claim Lost Little Boy

Port Hueneme police played Solomon on Tuesday afternoon, forced to choose between two women who both claimed to be the mother of a lost 1 1/2-year-old boy.

Police said the child was found on Hueneme Road at Surfside Drive by a city public works employee, who called police.

One woman approached the police and offered to help, then broke down and told police she was a homeless mother afraid she might get in trouble for letting the child loose, authorities said. But police doubted her story, and as they were putting her and the child into a cruiser to take them to the police station, a second woman arrived and claimed to be the mother, police said.

Police said the second woman was indeed the real mother and said her son had escaped by opening the door to his house and wandering out into the street. The first woman, from Oxnard, was hospitalized by the county Mental Health Services Department and may be charged with attempted kidnaping, police said.