Searchers found a Canadian toddler alive on Wednesday, days after her mother, who now faces a child abandonment charge, reported her missing.

The strange story began unfolding Sunday around 3:30 p.m., when Claire’s 34-year-old mother, Rachel Todd, ran into a fireworks store in a panic, according to Canada’s National Post.

Todd told the employee that her daughter was missing and didn’t remember what happened.

Claire, 3, was reportedly last seen at Todd’s house in Montreal, Canada, earlier that morning around 9:45 a.m.

Quebec police immediately launched an investigation, and announced it was deploying search and rescue teams.

The search continued for days, but police quickly noticed red flags about Todd.

Hours before Claire disappeared, Todd posted a TikTok video of herself holding Claire.

“You try that again, and this is going to get ugly,” Todd said to the camera.

The text on the video itself read, “I know more than you think.”

A caption below the post read, “Have you come up against a mother with nothing to lose???? #motherhood #threat #energywork #narcissist #magic.”

It is unclear what the context of the video was, and police didn’t speculate on the clip.

But the case took an ugly turn on Monday afternoon, when searchers found Claire’s chihuahua dead.

The suburb in which they found the dog was reportedly along the route between Todd’s home and the fireworks shop. Police didn’t immediately disclose the dog’s cause of death.

After interviewing Todd, police arrested her that same night, and on Tuesday she appeared in court, where she was charged with child abandonment, according to the Montreal Gazette.

Matt Bell, Claire’s father, posted to social media urging the public to help.

Bell and Todd were reportedly engaged in 2021, but may have recently separated.

The case grew darker still, when police discovered searches made on Todd’s cell phone for children’s urns and funeral services.

In another strange twist on Wednesday, police asked the public for help finding a potential key witness: a woman who had reportedly met with Todd just before Claire disappeared.

She reportedly lived on a farm, spoke English and French, and wore an apron which read “Abondance,” meaning abundance.

But on Wednesday afternoon a police drone located Claire along Highway 417 near St. Albert, Ontario — more than 90 miles from home, according to Canada’s CTV News.

Police said she somehow survived after being left alone without food or water.

“I’m waiting for mom, she told me to wait for her,” Claire reportedly told her rescuers, according to the National Post.

Claire Bell, 3, told police ‘mom told me to wait’ after missing Quebec toddler was found at side of Ontario highway: reporthttps://t.co/lzn1bEMyV3

— National Post (@nationalpost) June 21, 2025

Claire was taken to the hospital and is reportedly in good health.

“We had hope, but we were starting to think that she wouldn’t be alive anymore,” Guy Lapointe, the president of the Quebec Search and Rescue Volunteer Association, told CBC News. “We’re still on a cloud.”

If convicted of child abandonment, Todd faces a maximum of five years in prison.

Police said she did not have a criminal record.

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