Parents Abandon Boy, 12, at Bus Station

SALT LAKE CITY — The father and stepmother of a 12-year-old boy abandoned him at a bus station less than two weeks before his Christmas birthday, leaving him with a letter saying they could no longer care for him.

The youth wandered the city for six days before walking into a state youth services office Wednesday. He wore clean clothes and carried a bedroll, backpack and duffel bag.

The boy, whose name was not disclosed, asked for a place to live and gave workers a letter, apparently written by his stepmother and signed by both parents.

“To whom it may concern. I am writing this letter to tell you we can no longer care for our son, Mark. . . . My husband [the boy’s natural father] just found out he’s dying from AIDS and he doesn’t want Mark around, and I can’t care for Mark alone,” read a portion of the note, detailed Saturday in the Deseret News.

The boy also carried a birth certificate and told social workers he is a “blizzard baby,” born on Christmas Day during a winter storm in a Rocky Mountain state.

The letter said the boy’s mother died shortly after his birth and it advised state workers not to waste their time looking for his father and stepmother because they were leaving the country.

The boy told state workers his parents were planning to drive the family to Mexico, which was why he needed his birth certificate.

“This boy has no one. His parents have left him, and we have no way to find them or talk to them. He says he has no kin anywhere,” said Randy Ripplinger, Utah Human Services Department spokesman.

The boy said he never had been to school and that his family lived a nomadic life, finding shelter in abandoned homes and meals at soup kitchens.

The boy is staying in a state shelter and will spend Christmas there. Juvenile Judge Frederic Oddone will decide Tuesday whether he should go to a foster home.