Tag: child neglect
Newborn, Toddler Living in Kansas Storage Unit With Father Didn’t Have Food or Diapers
A father faces multiple charges after police found him with his two young children apparently living inside a unit of a Lenexa U-Haul in Kansas Tuesday evening, authorities said.
Officers were responding to reports of someone sleeping in a storage unit when they found Justin Rey and the two children, a toddler and an infant, police said. During the investigation they also found human remains in one of the units on the property, but officials would not say whether or not their was any connection, according to KTLA sister station WDAF in Kansas City.
Police say Rey didn’t have any food, diapers, or a place to sleep for the children. Rey was booked into jail in Johnson County on two counts of endangering a child and two counts of contributing to a child’s misconduct.
On Friday, Justin Rey appeared in Johnson County District Court, charged in the endangerment of those children found with him in the unit.
A witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he and his wife had given Rey a ride to the storage unit and was with him when the arrest happened.
The man said they immediately noticed Rey’s two baby girls — a newborn and a toddler, appeared to be in bad shape.
“When I saw her hair when she finally took the hoodie off, it reminded me of a cancer patient that’s been through treatment and hair loss,” the witness said.
The couple started asking questions.
“We assumed he was probably waiting on a wife or a girlfriend or whatever,” the witness said.
That woman never came because, Rey told them, she was dead.
“He told me before we left the restaurant that he lost the child’s mother during childbirth, that she’d passed. And so the story is getting sadder and sadder,” the witness said.
Rey said he was waiting for money from the military, and needed a ride to Union Station to take a train out of town, the man said. But first, Rey said, he needed to stop at the storage unit where he’d been staying since he’d been kicked out of his apartment for not paying rent.
“I said ‘we’ll take you to U-Haul, get what you need, take you to Union Station,” the witness told WDAF. The pair put the baby girls in their grandkids’ car seats and drove Rey to Lenexa. “We walked through the maze. I couldn’t get to that unit again if I had to, going in the same door today,” he said.
Rey finally opened the door to a packed storage unit and pulled out a stroller for the toddler, a gallon jug of urine, and a plastic storage bin, the witness said. “He got a big cooler … with a handle, telescopic-type handle and pushed it out.”
The witness then said he noticed a trail of brown liquid leaking from the cooler.
“I’m talking three or four puddles … on the concrete floor of some kind of moisture,” he said. “I wasn’t smelling anything foreign or foul, but I wondered about that. But like I said, my mind was racing about what’s in these containers.”
At this point, the couple wanted out.
“I’m already committed at that time; I can’t just say, ‘well, never mind, just get your stuff. My wife and I are going to head on home,'” said the witness.
They walked to the sliding glass door to leave the building and suddenly came face-to-face with Lenexa police.
“The police separated us almost immediately,” the witness said.
The man and his wife left as soon as police said they could, but they said the image of that leaking brown cooler and those little girls will haunt them.
“You don’t forget things like that. I mean, you just don’t forget things like that.”
The couple told WDAF they didn’t feel threatened, but they are “very concerned” now after police on scene told them they can’t find the girls’ mother.
Houston TX Hours-old baby found covered in ants
Good Samaritans discovered a newborn baby in the bushes early Thursday at an apartment complex in northwest Harris County.
“Bro…that’s crazy. Somebody left their baby out here…you gotta call 911, bro,” John Baldwin said as he recorded the moments after the discovery:He was among two men walking to work around 5 a.m. at the complex off Red Oak Drive.
“It’s like they just left the baby out there like it was trash,” said Baldwin.
Another passerby first heard the baby’s muffled cries.
“I heard like a baby, like a cat cry, like, meow…”, said eyewitness Albert Peterson. He said he yelled for his wife to call 911 as he ran to find something to get the baby warm and clean.
He told Eyewitness News the newborn was covered in afterbirth and insects. “I saw ants and stuff all over. I picked her up, cleaned her off, put her in a sheet and took her in my house,” he said.
Authorities said the newborn was less than an hour old, full-term and healthy with the umbilical cord still attached. Investigators were able to track down the woman they believe to be the mother at a nearby apartment.
Detectives said if it were not for the Good Samaritans, the baby girl might not have survived.
“I just did my job. That’s what God wanted me to do,” said Baldwin.
The mother has been detained and is undergoing a psychological and medical evaluation. As things stand, no one has been arrested or charged, though the investigation is still underway.
Child Protective Services said they will try to place the infant with a relative or close family friend, at least temporarily. If none can be found, the baby could eventually be placed up for adoption.
Child Protective Services will hold a hearing on Friday to request temporary custody of the baby.
There is a Texas law that allows new parents, under certain conditions, to give up their child. The Safe Haven or Baby Moses law gives parents who are unable to care for their child the right to leave the child somewhere like a fire station or hospital without prosecution.
Anybody who would like to offer assistance should visit adoptchildren.orgor call Marty Votaw at 832-454-4163.
via: http://abc7chicago.com/hours-old-baby-found-covered-in-ants/2293111/
COUPLE TRIES TO SELL A BABY ON CRAIGSLIST FOR $3K, SHERIFF SAYS
Authorities say a Tennessee couple is accused of trying to sell a 5-month-old baby online for $3,000.
Local news outlets report that the Greene County Sheriff’s Office says 37-year-old Deanna Lynn Greer and 26-year-old John David Cain were arrested Friday on charges of aggravated child abuse and aggravated child neglect or endangerment.
Sheriff Pat Hankins says authorities were alerted after another couple saw an ad posted on Craigslist listing the infant for sale.
Hankins says an undercover officer contacted Greer and Cain and was given the price for the child. He says the couple then met with the agent at a store, exchanged the baby for cash and both were then taken into custody.
Hankins says the child is in state custody.
It’s unclear if Greer and Cain have attorneys.
FATHER ACCUSED IN FATAL STABBING OF 2 DAUGHTERS IN NORTH CAROLINA
In an exclusive interview with family members Saturday, ABC11 was told the father accused of murdering his two young children was an “abuser.”
Sheriff Hubert Peterkin said Genesis and Serenity Freeman – who were just 2-years-old and 4-days-old – were found stabbed multiple times near N.C. Highway 211 and Army Road in the Raeford area. Their bodies were found in a car parked in a wooded area. The children’s aunt, Marvina Smith, told ABC11 Saturday afternoon that the children’s mother attempted suicide when she discovered her kids had been murdered. She is currently recovering in the hospital.
“I want him to suffer,” Smith said. “The way them kids suffered. I want him to suffer.”
On Friday, the Fayetteville Police Department said the children’s father, Tillman Freeman, was in custody and had refused to say where the children were. He was charged then with two counts of child abuse and child neglect. He’s now also charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
“It’s kind of hard to find the words to describe what this feels like,” said Hoke County Sheriff Hubert Peterkin. “I know people read it, I know people see the story and hear about it, but to be out here on the scene and actually see this stuff, to see these children lifeless and brutally stabbed…I don’t care how many years you’ve been in it. How many times you’ve been in it or seen things, this was not a good experience. Everybody’s taking this real hard. Our heart goes out to the family, to the mother.”
Fayetteville police said the children were at the center of a domestic-related incident between Freeman, 30, and his wife, who was at the hospital at the time, and Freeman left with the children.
“From what our investigation’s telling us they had a dispute, where (Freeman) allegedly made accusations about the babies not being his, a child not being his or maybe her involvement with someone, and when he took the kids we understand he left in a rage,” Peterkin told ABC11.
“I feel sad and hurt, but there’s nothing I can do about it,” one of the relatives, whose name is being withheld, said.
Peterkin said Freeman accused his wife of cheating on him. She was in a local hospital when Freeman took them.
Freeman was arrested Friday afternoon after employees at a doctor’s office in Raeford reported a suspicious-looking man standing in front of their building.
During questioning, Freeman indicated the children were in Hoke County, and he may have harmed them, Peterkin said.
The SBI is investigating. Freeman has a court appearance on Monday.
via: http://abc7ny.com/news/father-accused-in-fatal-stabbing-of-2-daughters-in-north-carolina/1818355/