Mother Vanishes After Dropping Off Child

Sheriff’s deputies were still searching Friday for a woman they said left her 7-month-old son with a baby-sitter more than a week ago and never returned.

Denise Armstead, 28, dropped off her son on May 23 at the Palmdale apartment of Barbara Balmer, who often baby-sat for Armstead, Sheriff’s Deputy Marty Shearer said. “There was nothing out of the ordinary about it,” Shearer said. But Armstead never returned to the apartment in the 500 block of East Avenue Q-4.

Balmer, 38, told deputies she did not know where Armstead lived or who the baby’s father was, and had tried unsuccessfully to contact Armstead’s mother, Shearer said.

She finally decided to call authorities Thursday, and the infant was turned over to the county Department of Children’s Services.

“It’s a big mystery,” Shearer said. The mother “said she’d be back that day to pick the kid up,” he said, but Balmer “just never heard from her again.”