What to Know
On August 23, 2026, a good Samaritan in Nebraska reportedly heard a toddler screaming from inside a minivan near Pawnee Lake in Lancaster County. The woman called 911, and deputies from the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Department arrived on the scene around 4:00 p.m.
By the time they arrived, the child had been removed from the vehicle by her mother, 54-year-old Mayde McGuire. McGuire, an off-duty Lincoln police captain, was evidently fishing nearby with her partner, 49-year-old Mary Tobiassen. McGuire reportedly took a breathalyzer test and had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.108. Deputies cited both women for misdemeanor child abuse.
The child reportedly made a lot of noise.
Braydon Nichols and Izabella Glover were both fishing at Pawnee Lake when they heard the child crying and called 911 for help. Glover told KOLN the sounds coming from inside the van bothered her.
“It was a child in distress,” Glover said. “It wasn’t a child just wanting to get out of something they didn’t want to do. They wanted their parents. They didn’t know what was going on.”
Nichols said seeing the dark van with dark interior concerned him. “I mean it was a black mini van with black dark tint. I didn’t see her hands until she put her hands against the window,” he recalled.
Glover said the child attracted her attention.
As she moved closer to the van, she knew the little girl wanted help.
“I went over and she wasn’t in her booster seat,” Glover said. “That’s when she had crawled over the seats to get in the front of the car to start banging and that’s when we could really see her.“
Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner said in a news briefing that McGuire removed the child from the van before deputies arrived.
The child was in the van for nearly thirty minutes.
Wagner said that a preliminary investigation determined the child was inside the van for at least 28 minutes alone. He added that the vehicle was locked and the windows were up at the time of the incident.
“We just can’t emphasize enough how quickly the interior of a vehicle can get extremely hot. Even on a 78 degree day which is pretty pleasant for us outdoors. Inside a vehicle it gets extremely hot extremely quick. And so, children just cannot be left inside a vehicle at this time of year,” Wagner said.
“Not just this time of year. Anytime of year,” someone commented on the sheriff’s department’s Facebook page.
“Even with a vehicle ‘running with the AC on’ it may quit after several minutes,” another person agreed. “Please please don’t think the child is ok and do this.”
Others wondered why the women didn’t have someone else care for their child. ‘How difficult is it to hire a babysitter? No baby sitter, no fishing…not that difficult, those are the rules.”
The incident remains under investigation.
Wagner said the investigation is in the early stages and police are still working to piece together exactly what happened. KLIN reported the Lincoln Police Department placed McGuire on investigative suspension pending the results of an internal investigation.
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