HAMEL, Ill. – A Madison County, Illinois, father is charged with endangering the life of his child, who drowned in the family’s backyard swimming pool. FOX 2 has learned the drowning followed two other police responses involving the same child.

“Two instances that, quite frankly, were life-endangering,” Hamel Police Chief Alan Winslow said.

The village of Hamel is an old Route 66 town, about 10 minutes from Edwardsville.

One block from Hamel City Hall is a home where a 3-year-old child recently drowned in a backyard pool.

“Incredibly tragic,” Chief Winslow said, “that the same thing happened again, but yet this time they weren’t able to save him.”

Winslow says it “happened again” because the same child was rescued from the same pool in September 2022. The child was 19-months old at the time.

According to reports, the same child wandered away from home earlier this year and was located by strangers. Residents say they saw the child walking through yards, naked, this past March in the middle of the day.

“Amazement that he could walk that far,” Vernon Hilla said. “I don’t know what urged him to come this way.”

Hilla said he called police.

“I told them we got a problem, and I said I don’t know where this little boy came from,” he said.

Chief Winslow said both cases resulted in calls to the child safety hotline.

“DCFS, their role in that would be to work with the parents to make sure this kind of thing did not happen again,” he said.

Illinois DCFS responded to FOX 2 with a written statement: “Anytime a life of a child is lost, it is a profound tragedy and our hearts break for this child and the lives that were touched; Illinois DCFS offers our sincere condolences to all of those affected by this tremendous loss. DCFS is working with local law enforcement on this investigation and, as such, cannot comment further on this case.”

FOX 2 has not heard back from the child’s father—34-year-old Zach John Stratton—who faces a felony child endangerment charge from the Madison County State’s Attorney’s Office.