It had been days since anyone had seen two-year-old Haleigh Ann, after her mother dropped her off at the babysitter’s house for the weekend. When the caretaker failed to return her home on Sunday and couldn’t be reached, cops were called to find the missing girl. When the found her, she had two terrifying words about what she saw.

The mother of the Michigan toddler was struggling in life after her significant other, who is Haleigh’s father, went to jail on drug offences. Not much was stable in this little girl’s life, and she was shuffled around from various friends and family members’ homes, going to anyone who would watch her. The only constant caretaker was 49-year-old Ron Finkler. The the girl’s mother, Megan Wheelock, considered him to be her strongest supporter.

Ron Finkler with Haleigh Ann (left), Finkler’s home (right)

Wheelock left Haleigh in Ron’s care for a couple of days, while she figured out how she was going to get her life together so she could be a better mother to her daughter. The arrangement was for the babysitter to return the toddler to Wheelock on Sunday, so the two of them could celebrate Mother’s Day together. However, that day came and went, and nobody could get in contact with Ron to see where he and Haleigh were.

Haleigh Ann

According to Wood8 TV, nobody thought to go to Ron’s house until Tuesday, when cops were called out to the foul scene that Haleigh’s family found. The toddler looked up at her mother and said, “Ron’s dead,” which cops determined had been the case for at least two days. Haleigh had fended for herself for almost the entire time she was in the sitter’s care, after he suddenly and mysteriously died from natural causes.

“It’s hard to believe and hard to understand,” said Monsignor Terrance Stewart, who is Ron’s acquaintance and is left in disbelief of the situation. “Apparently she went into the refrigerator and got food and so on. They think that’s what she did.”

The little girl has since been placed in her maternal grandmother’s care, as her mom is still not in a place to be a parent to her. What’s truly tragic, is that Finkler was said to be Haleigh’s whole world, and she was his, since he was never able to have a family of his own. She spent more time with him than anyone else.

The one loving and reliable person in her life she could trust is gone, and she was stuck in the house with his dead body for days, because the remaining adults in her life didn’t bother to check on her sooner.