Police are still investigating the incident but, newspaper Correio da Manhã reports, “evidence gathered so far does not indicate the involvement of a third party” in the boy’s disappearance.
Two-year-old Martim was found alive but “cold, wet and very hungry” on Tuesday morning, some two kilometres from where he disappeared 25 hours earlier.
Martim vanished from the rear patio of his grandparents’ rural property and apparently travelled a couple of kilometres through surrounding forest-like terrain, possibly spending the night alone, in the open-air.
He reportedly went missing while his grandmother nipped inside the house for a brief moment to chop an onion for lunch.
Nonetheless, in a statement, Leiria PJ Police said they are not yet ruling out any possible scenario.
In a press conference, the director of the PJ’s Leiria Criminal Investigation department said the boy was found “in a normal state for someone who had been exposed for some hours to adverse weather.”
António Sintra said whether the child spent the 25 hours alone or whether he was left at the locale by a third party, remained an open possibility.
The toddler was found by GNR officers patrolling the area and, after a warm bath and food, was taken to Leiria’s Santo André Hospital’s paediatric ward to be examined.
The toddler’s parents have recently divorced and the father was in France at the time of Martim’s disappearance.