As the case moved into court, an emotional plea from the boy’s mother, strict release conditions, and a fast-growing wave of community attention revealed just how far the tragedy had rippled beyond one Peoria home. What had begun as a family returning from what should have been a meaningful day at church had become an investigation involving police, prosecutors, court hearings, and a community struggling to understand how a five-year-old child could be left inside a vehicle for hours.
But the most haunting details were still buried in the timeline of those final hours.
A family returned home from the baptism of another child, expecting the afternoon to continue like any ordinary Sunday. There was no indication, according to the reported timeline, that within a few hours their lives would be changed forever. Yet investigators soon began reconstructing every minute between the family’s arrival home and the moment a frantic search ended with the discovery of little Theo.
And as that timeline came together, **two accounts of one crucial moment did not match.**
The devastating case unfolded in Peoria, Arizona, on September 13, 2026. According to investigators, the family had attended the baptism of another child at church before returning home at approximately 1 p.m. The day should have been centered around faith, family, and celebration.
Instead, less than three hours later, the family would be searching desperately for a five-year-old boy.
According to [*FOX 10 Phoenix*](https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/peoria-parents-arrested-after-5-year-old-child-found-dead-car), the family arrived back at their home around 1 p.m. after the baptism. For more than two hours afterward, Theo’s whereabouts were apparently unknown.
The exact sequence of events during that period has become a central part of the investigation.
At some point after the family arrived home, the five-year-old remained inside a vehicle outside the house near 67th Avenue and Happy Valley Road. Time passed.
Then, shortly after 3:45 p.m., the family realized Theo was missing.
The realization triggered an immediate search.
What had perhaps been an ordinary afternoon suddenly became frantic. Family members searched the property and surrounding areas, calling for the child and trying to determine where he could have gone. Every passing minute carried greater urgency.
Then Theo’s mother found him.
He was **unresponsive inside the vehicle** at the family’s home.
Family members pulled the boy from the vehicle and began CPR while emergency responders were called. Peoria Fire personnel arrived and transported Theo to a nearby hospital, but the five-year-old was pronounced dead.
The discovery alone left the family facing an unimaginable loss.
But investigators were also faced with a critical question: **How did Theo remain inside the vehicle for approximately two and a half hours without anyone realizing he was there?**
That question became even more complicated when investigators began comparing statements from family members.
## **Father and Teen Son Give Different Accounts**
According to the court documents cited in the FOX 10 report, Theo’s father, **Mihail Sabo**, told investigators that after the family arrived home, he had asked his 14-year-old son to get the five-year-old out of the vehicle.
The teenager reportedly gave police a different account.
He told investigators that his father had **not** asked him to get Theo out of the car.
That contradiction does not, by itself, establish exactly what happened or why. But it became one of the key details investigators were examining as they attempted to reconstruct the afternoon and determine how responsibility for getting Theo out of the vehicle was understood within the family.
The difference between the two accounts centers on only one moment.
One person reportedly remembered an instruction being given.
Another reportedly said that instruction never happened.
And between those two versions lies the unanswered question of what everyone believed was supposed to happen after the family arrived home.
Peoria police spokesman William Kennedy described the possibility as a miscommunication over which family member was responsible for getting the child out of the vehicle.
“It appears that it was either a miscommunication between who or which family member was supposed to get the child out of the car,” Kennedy said.
That explanation forms part of the investigative picture, but authorities have not said that it resolves every question surrounding the case.
The parents, identified by police as Mihail Sabo and Anca Sabo, were arrested and face charges of negligent homicide and child abuse. FOX 10 reported that both were given a $150,000 bond. The investigation remains ongoing.
For the family, however, the legal terminology cannot capture what happened inside those final hours.
A five-year-old boy who had been at a family baptism that afternoon was suddenly gone.
His mother ultimately found him.
Family members attempted CPR.
Emergency personnel rushed him to the hospital.
And despite those efforts, Theo did not survive.
Now investigators must work backward through those hours, examining statements, timelines, physical evidence, and every available detail to determine what happened and why.
The case is no longer simply about a tragic discovery.
It is about understanding the sequence of events that preceded it.
It is about determining what each family member knew, what each person believed someone else was doing, and how the crucial responsibility of getting a young child out of a vehicle may have been understood that afternoon.
For those who knew Theo, the questions surrounding the investigation can never change the simplest fact of all: a little boy who should have gone home from church and spent an ordinary Sunday afternoon with his family instead became the center of a heartbreaking investigation.
And for investigators, the timeline remains critical.
Because somewhere between **1 p.m., when the family arrived home, and shortly after 3:45 p.m., when Theo was found**, lies the sequence of decisions, assumptions, and missed moments that authorities are now trying to understand.