The tow truck driver says it wasn't his fault, the mother whose van was towed has been arrested, and the 7-year-old at the heart of the story is now staying with relatives.

It all started early Thursday morning when the repo driver, identified by philly.com as Carmine Giannone, spotted the minivan about 2:30 in the morning in West Philadelphia, hitched it up and drove off with the sleeping girl inside.

Bystanders yelled that she was in the van, but "You see that all the time as a deterrent (to a repossession)," he explained, and he kept driving to get out of "the danger zone."

Police stopped him a few blocks later and the girl was discovered under a blanket in the back of the van.

Meanwhile, her mother was arrested on an unrelated outstanding warrant, but the city's Special Victims Unit is investigating, philly.com reports. She could be charged with child endangerment, police said, depending on how long her daughter was alone.

The woman says 20 minutes, police said. She had just stopped the van to run inside the place where she worked to clock out when Giannone pounced. Van and girl were gone when she came out.