Three young children were stuck in a car in a Walmart parking lot for seven hours after their parents were arrested for shoplifting and failed to mention them to police.

Tosheba Hope, 30, and Gerald Moultrie, 24, were busted at a Walmart in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida, after trying to sneak out of the store with $600 in tools and car accessories about 7pm on Monday, according to police.

As police cuffed them and hauled them off the jail, they never told officers that their children, age two, seven and nine, were locked in their car just a few feet away.

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Said nothing: Tosheba Hope, 30, (left) and Gerald Moultrie, 24, (right) never told police that their kids were in the car after they were arrested at a Walmart in South Florida

The kids, seen here being led out of a police station, were only rescued when a customer noticed them locked in a car seven hours after the arrest of their parents

The kids were stuck in this car from 7pm, when their parents were busted, until 2am. They were upset, but otherwise healthy after the ordeal

The kids were not discovered until almost 2am when a customer spotted the children crying and called store employees.

Neither Hope - the mother of all three children - nor Moultrie - the father of the youngest child - said anything about the children that were trapped in their car in the parking lot, according to police.

However, Hope didn't hesitate to mention her children in her bid to be release from jail. WTVJ reports that she told a judge she is the mother of three children and is pregnant with a fourth - in a bid for leniency.

She was later released on her own recognizance.

'It's extremely dangerous that the kids were left in a car with no supervision. No one knew they were out there, no one knew where their parents were,' Broward Sheriff Office spokeswoman Gina Carter told the Miami Herald.

Police said the children were upset, but otherwise not injured after spending seven hours stuck in a car.

In addition to grand theft charges, authorities expect to file child neglect charges against the couple.

The children have been placed with family members.