A Baltimore woman was arrested on New Years Eve after police say she left her four-year-old daughter locked in a car all day at Maryland Live! Casino.

Police say Alicia Brown, 24, stashed her young child in an SUV for more than eight hours. A casino security officer heard screams and spotted the child on the 4th floor of a Maryland Live! parking garage sobbing, freezing and terribly confused.

“The first thing I did when I got the message was gasp,” Anne Arundel County Police spokesman Lt. T.J. Smith said. “We don’t do this to animals, we certainly shouldn’t do this to children.”

Casino security cameras captured Brown driving into the parking garage around 10 a.m. Tuesday. The Baltimore resident reportedly placed blankets over the windows of her white GMC Terrain to hide her daughter from passersby.

The 24-year-old then entered the casino and gambled without checking on her child’s well-being once. When she finally emerged from the casino floor at 6:30 p.m., police officers and security guards were surrounding her car. Brown was quickly placed under arrest.

Authorities say the young girl told security officers that her mom had told her she would “be right back.”

“I was asked earlier if she gave an excuse for this. Personally I don’t care what her excuse is, there’s no reason to leave a four-year-old child inside of a cold vehicle,” Lt. Smith added.

Before she was arrested, officials say that Brown originally wondered out loud where her 17-year-old cousin was, as she was apparently supposed to be watching the girl. Brown quickly recanted that statement.

With the temperature at the time of the girl’s discovery just 2 degrees above freezing, paramedics transported the pre-schooler to Baltimore Washington Medical Center. Doctors there found the youngster to be cold and hungry, but in good health. She was released to her grandmother.

“It’s a case of darn right not caring,” Arundel Mills Mall shopper Nick Choobineh remarked. “It’s your child, it’s your flesh and blood. I mean a couple of dice and a couple of cards in a casino game are worth more than a child? That woman is not worthy of being a mother.”

“Who would do such a thing,” Arundel Mills Mall shopper Pam Teal asked rhetorically. “A small child in the car for eight hours? That’s terrible. If she’s in jail, she’s in the right place right now.”

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Mattie Brooks, of Seneca, is facing child abuse charges after she was arrested on South Walnut Street Thursday morning. Seneca Police Chief John Covington says Brooks has biological children in her care and children under her care from the state of New York.

Between 1999 and 2009, investigators say Brooks mutilated a girl, confined her to a doghouse and made her drink unsafe chemicals.

During that same time, authorities also say Brooks burned a boy, deprived him of food and water and confined him to a bedroom. Police also say Brooks sexually abused the young girl in the early 2000s.

Some of the offenses described in the report are too graphic to share.

Police say they’ve investigated allegations of child abuse for several months after one of the victims filed a complaint against Brooks. They don’t want to reveal if the victims are her children or children she was given to care from New York.

Brooks is charged with criminal sexual conduct and two counts unlawful conduct toward a child. Seneca Investigator Mike Teramano says he believes there are more victims in this case.

“I’m confident that there are other victims in this case and I encourage them to come forward,” says Teramano.

Teramano says New York gave her a $25 stipend each day at some point to help cover costs. Teramano says they don’t know when that stipend stopped or started. They also don’t know how many children she was receiving that stipend for.

7 On Your Side has reached out to the New York’s Department of Social Services.  They tell us they cannot release any information or confirm if Brooks was a foster parent because it could reveal the identity of children in the foster care system.

Brooks also has two prior convictions of child abuse on her record. We’ve learned from Seneca Police Reports that she whipped two boys with an electrical cord in 1999. She was sentenced in April 1999 to 10 years suspension so she did not serve prison time,

South Carolina’s Department of Social Services says Brooks has never been licensed as a foster parent with their agency.