Do you guys know something more of this case than I do? For all I know, the mother could have been deperately looking for the kid elsewhere when this was happening. Kids that small have poorer brains for self-preservation than the cats and dogs Ani referred to. The kid could have been walking alongside the mom in a throng and accidentally got separated by following a stranger in similar clothing. Or if they were at home, the kid's five years old cousin could have opened the locked front door while the mom was preparing food or taking a shower. Even for non-bad parents there exists a statistical possibility for a tragic mistake/accident to happen. Just to put things into perspective, thousands of kids die every year around the world, and the deaths aren't all due to bad parenting, though many are.