North Miami Beach Mom Accused of Leaving 4 Kids Home Alone During Bahamas Cruise
- 🔑 Nathalie Belizaire, 29, of North Miami Beach, Florida, was arrested and charged with four counts of felony child neglect after police say she left her four children — including a 2-month-old and a 2-year-old — home alone for about three days while she took a Bahamas cruise.
- Police say the children’s father called 911 on a Saturday night after hearing them inside Belizaire’s apartment with no adult answering the door; officers and firefighters forced entry and found all four children unharmed, hiding together in a bathroom.
- Belizaire was taken into custody by federal agents as she disembarked the Carnival Conquest at PortMiami on Monday, September 28, 2026, then booked by North Miami Beach police on four counts of child neglect without great bodily harm.
- At her bond hearing the next day, a Miami-Dade circuit judge set bond at $2,500 per count — $10,000 total — and ordered Belizaire to have no contact with the children; she posted bond and was released from jail that same evening.
- The children remain in the custody of Florida’s child-welfare system while the Department of Children and Families investigates; the criminal case and a separate custody case will proceed on different tracks, and no trial date has been set.
- Belizaire has pleaded not guilty and has not been convicted of any crime, so every detail of her alleged conduct described here comes from police and court accounts rather than a proven verdict. No betting odds, spreads, or win-probability models appear anywhere on this page.
A North Miami Beach mother was arrested and charged with four counts of felony child neglect after police say she left her four children, including a 2-month-old infant, home alone for about three days while she went on a cruise to the Bahamas. Nathalie Belizaire, 29, was taken into custody as she stepped off the ship at PortMiami and appeared in bond court the next day. Here is what has been confirmed about the case so far.
What is the timeline of the case so far?
The case unfolded over less than a week, from a cruise-ticket post on social media to a bond hearing five days later. Here are the key dates confirmed across police and court accounts:
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Thu, Sep 24 | Father sees a cruise-ticket post on Belizaire’s WhatsApp story |
| Fri, Sep 25 | Carnival Conquest departs PortMiami for a 3-day Bahamas sailing |
| Sat, Sep 26 | Father calls 911; police find the children alone at night |
| Mon, Sep 28 | Belizaire taken into custody as the ship returns to PortMiami |
| Tue, Sep 29 | Bond hearing; $10,000 bond set and posted same evening |
What happened to the children while their mother was gone?
Police say Nathalie Belizaire’s four children — a 2-month-old infant, a 2-year-old, and two older siblings — were left alone inside her North Miami Beach apartment for roughly three days while she was out of the country. According to the arrest report, the children’s father grew concerned after seeing what looked like a cruise-ticket purchase on Belizaire’s WhatsApp story. He said she had told him she planned to drop the children off with their great-grandmother before leaving town; investigators say the great-grandmother told police the children were never brought to her.
Who is Nathalie Belizaire, and what is she charged with?
Nathalie Belizaire, 29, of North Miami Beach, Florida, faces four counts of felony child neglect without great bodily harm — one count for each child police found alone in her apartment. She has not been convicted of anything, and court filings show her attorney entered a not-guilty plea on her behalf. The case is being handled in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, and under the law the allegations against her remain just that — allegations.
How did police find the children?
North Miami Beach police and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue forced their way into Belizaire’s apartment on Saturday night after the children’s father called 911. He told officers he had gone to check on the kids, seen a television on through the blinds, and heard children’s voices inside but gotten no answer at the door. When officers and firefighters entered, they found all four children alone, hiding together in a bathroom. Police say the children were unharmed; body-camera video of the discovery was released along with the arrest report.
What happened when Belizaire got back to Miami?
Belizaire was taken into custody by federal Customs and Border Protection agents as she disembarked the Carnival Conquest at PortMiami on Monday, September 28, at the end of the three-day round-trip cruise to the Bahamas. She was then handed over to North Miami Beach police, who booked her on the four neglect charges. She appeared in bond court the following day.
What happened at the bond hearing?
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Mindy Glazer set Belizaire’s bond at $2,500 per count — $10,000 total — and ordered her to have no direct or indirect contact with the children. “You cannot make this up,” the judge said in court, reacting to the allegations against Belizaire. The judge also noted that the infant left behind had been born only weeks earlier, questioning how a baby that young could be left alone. Belizaire’s public defender asked the court to consider pretrial-release conditions and stressed that the allegations had not been proven. Belizaire posted bond and was released from Miami-Dade’s main jail that same evening.
Where are the children now, and what happens next?
The four children are currently in the custody of Florida’s child-welfare system while the Department of Children and Families investigates, and Belizaire is barred from contacting them for now. The criminal case and a separate child-custody (dependency) case will move forward on their own tracks — one over whether the neglect charges hold up, the other over where the children will live long-term. No trial date or further hearing had been scheduled as of publication.
This is still an early-stage case. Belizaire has only just been arraigned, no evidence has been tested at trial, and nothing here should be read as a final word on what happened inside that apartment. We’ll revisit this story if the case moves toward a plea, a trial date, or a resolution in the children’s custody case.
How we verified this
The charges and overall timeline were checked against multiple independent television-news and network-news accounts reporting from arrest and court documents, all consistent on the four felony child-neglect counts, the Monday PortMiami arrest, and the Tuesday bond hearing.
The day-of-week sequence was cross-checked against the actual 2026 calendar rather than taken from any single recap, since at least one secondary aggregation misdated individual steps; the days reported by primary local coverage (Saturday for the 911 call, Monday for the arrest, Tuesday for the bond hearing) were used as the anchor and matched the calendar for a Friday cruise departure.
The ages of the two older children were not confirmed by any source reviewed. One secondary aggregator listed specific ages that could not be corroborated elsewhere, so this piece states only the two ages — 2 months and 2 years — that were consistently confirmed, and omits the rest per house policy on identifying minors.
The judge’s bond ruling and courtroom remarks were checked against more than one independent hearing recap and matched in substance and in the one direct quotation used.
The Department of Children and Families’ role is attributed to police and court reporting, not to a DCF press release — no such release was located as of publication, and the children’s custody status is described accordingly as reported, not officially confirmed by the agency itself.
No betting odds, spreads, or win-probability models appear anywhere on this page. This is an active, unresolved case: charges have not been tested in court, and later developments (arraignment outcome, plea changes, or a DCF custody ruling) were not available at write time.