A Georgia man is looking at some serious legal trouble after a now-viral story of why he left his three children behind in a local McDonald’s seems to have some holes in it. The internet rallied behind 24-year-old Chris Louis, who was arrested on March 22 at an Augusta McDonald’s after police found he’d left his three children alone in the restaurant for over an hour and a half.
When questioned, Louis told investigators he didn’t have a car and left the kids, ages 10, 6 and 1, at the restaurant’s play space while he went to a job interview at a nearby hotel, according to the Augusta Press.
Louis was arrested and charged with deprivation of a minor, and his story attracted the attention of thousands, including ex-NFL player Antonio Brown, who started a GoFundMe page to support Louis and his family. The page has blown past its $50,000 goal, raising over $78,000 to date.
“This GoFundMe is set in place to help this man. I have spoken with GoFundMe and they will get the funds to Chris and his family,” Brown wrote on the page. “I haven’t spoken to Chris yet, but I hope to do so soon.”
But now, as local authorities release more details from the investigation, it looks like things aren’t what they seemed. According to The Augusta Chronicle, new evidence doesn’t support Louis’ original story. Witnesses testified they heard Louis on the phone inside the McDonald’s around 4:30 pm telling someone he needed to “drop something off,” which authorities later discovered was a backpack.
After waiting in the restaurant alone, the 10-year-old called the children’s mother who showed up at the McDonald’s around 6:12 pm.
Louis returned a few minutes later with the backpack and told police he’d “lost his ID and another card and had been retracing his steps to find them.” Meanwhile, the manager at the West Bank Inn, where Louis claimed his interview was scheduled, told police Louis filled out a job application that day, but was there hours before he and his children were seen at the McDonald’s.
Video surveillance from the hotel confirms the manger’s testimony, according to The Augusta Chronicle.