Parents Behaving Badly

Well, if this story doesn’t tell you that drugs make you stupid, I don’t know what does. In Hampton, Virginia, Sarah Letha Ezell, 23, was arrested for giving her six-year-old son cocaine. She is charged with felony child abuse and adulteration of drink.

Ezell mixed powder cocaine in a glass of water and gave it to her son to drink – god knows why. Usually cocaine makes people hyper and who wants an out of control first grader on their hands?

Ezzell’s roommate, Stacey Daddysman saw her give the boy the drink. She then called one of the boy’s relatives. The relative came by to pick up the kid, took him home, then called 911 to report it. The boy was taken to a hospital by ambulance and treated.

By the way, the six-year-old is disabled, and has trouble walking and swallowing. Again, what was the mom thinking when she gave him her own version of Coke?

Dannet and Juan Rodriguez have been arrested on charges of child neglect.

I can only imagine how much this couple must love this ride to leave their child alone for 45 minutes in the hot sun.

45 minutes was long enough for the girl to become unresponsive do to heat exhaustion. Paramedics were called to revive the child.

This couple is very lucky that someone was there to notice the child. If they had tried to hide her behind a bush or tree or something, she could have died…resulting in a very different ending for the parents.

Well, I guess they both just got a very important lesson in parenting: watch your kids or they’ll be taken away. p.s. you get jail time too.

It’s summertime in Florida and you leave your three-month-old baby boy in a car for 40 minutes while you do a little shopping at Ross – how stupid can you be?

Well,  Tashana Luz, 25, of Kissimmee, Florida is plenty stupid because she was arrested for neglect after off-duty police officer, Sgt. Camille Alicea, spotted the infant alone, crying, and sweating inside the locked car.

As paramedics raced to the scene, Alicea and three other people used sticks, a bottle and a rock to try to free the baby from the sweltering car. They finally got it open, and Alicea carried him to safety. When she pulled off his socks, she saw that his feet had nearly turned black.

The baby was taken to the hospital and has since recovered from life-threatening injuries.

Starting July 1 in Florida, anyone who leaves a child under the age of six alone in a vehicle for more than 15 minutes can be charged with a second-degree misdemeanor. Too late for Luz, unfortunately.

When I’m blogging at Teacher Smackdown about teachers sexually abusing students, I’m always amazed how stupid perps are about evidence. They send sexually explicit emails and letters to the victims. They IM them about sex. They send naked pictures of themselves to the students’ cell phones. And then they brag about having sex with their underage student on Facebook.

So when I hear relatives making a video showing a 10-month-old drinking gin and juice, and the relatives sitting laughing, I’m not surprised. People are sooooo stoooooopid.

In Bradenton, Florida, the boy’s aunt, Heather L. Moore, 21, and his uncle, John D. Bell, 45, were arrested on felony-level child abuse charges. The boy’s mom, a 16-year-old teenage runaway, was booked and detained at a juvenile detention center on charges of abuse and neglect.

The girl’s mom, Betty O’Neil, 37, found the tapes when she picked up her daughter’s belongings from a woman with whom she had been staying. O’Neil told police that her grandson drank to the point of intoxication. She also found photographs of the boy drinking alcohol.

Police believe the boy’s mom was the one taking the video. She has acknowledged what she did was wrong. Even so, the toddler is now in state custody.

In Detroit, former foster mom Charlsie Adams-Rogers is charged with involuntary manslaughter and child abuse for her care of two-year-old Isaac Lethbridge and his sister (the girl’s name is not being released because she remains in foster care), Isaac Lethbridge died of multiple blunt force injuries and burns.

Adams-Roger is currently under trial, and the evidence against her is overwhelming. Doctors have testified about cigarette burns on the four-year-old sister of a murdered foster child. A foster care worker said that the bruising he saw on Isaac became more severe after the boy was placed in Adams-Rogers’ foster home.

The foster mom is blaming her adopted 13-year-old daughter for the Issac’s death. She said the teen had been sexually molested, suffered from an attention deficit disorder, and was on medication. Well if that was the case, maybe she shouldn’t have taken in two vulnerable, small children.

Isaac died just six weeks after he was transferred from another foster home where he was abused. Poor kid.

UPDATE: In Aurora, Colorado, Susie Ida Quartey, the Ghanaian health-care worker accused of abusing her three-year-old daughter Jolyn Torpoh, is now charged with child abuse knowingly and recklessly causing death, i.e., homicide. If convicted, she’ll get four to 48 years in prison.

Quartey also faces charges filed after her arrest this spring, including sex assault on a child and second-degree assault with a deadly weapon. She is also charged with tampering with a witness or victim, because she told her five-year-old son not to talk about what had happened to his sister.

Quartey told police that she had been carrying her daughter in a sling on her back when she slipped on some ice-covered gravel. When the child stopped breathing later that night, she called 911. Police found the girl naked on the bedroom floor, with scratches, puncture wounds and bruises on her body.

(Click here for the original story and comments.)

Police were alerted when restaurant employee saw Raymond Minchew leave the restaurant with the 6-year-old and return alone.

He apparently left mid-meal, bound the child by one of his ankles and returned to the restaurant to finish his meal. God forbid he not get to finish his meal.

He claims the child was misbehaving, though restaurant employees disagree.

The boy was found crying, bound by his ankle inside the vehicle in 80 degree weather.

He is now in protective custody.

Joel Zellmer has been married four times. During each of his marriages, Zellmer had abused his wives’ children. One infant had two broken legs, another child had second-degree burns on his hands, and a third toddler nearly drowned in Zellmer’s hot tub.

Then three-year-old Ashley McLellan fell into a pool and died. He was supposed to be watching the girl and told the emergency workers an unlikely story. Supposedly, while her mom was at work, the girl opened a sliding glass door, went onto the deck to eat some cake that Zellmer had left, then wandered down a flight of stairs to wash her hands in the unlit, uncovered pool. Yeah, right. It was 39 degrees outside and Ashley was afraid of the dark.

Investigators believe that Zellmer killed Ashley to collect on insurance proceeds. Three months before Ashley’s death, Zellmer and Ashley’s mom, Stacey Ferguson, took out a $200,000 life-insurance policy on her.

The child’s death had been ruled an accident, but Stacey fought to have the case reopened. Now Zellmer is charged with first-degree murder and prosecutors claim that the death of his stepdaughter was premeditated.

The guy’s a con artist, a murderer, and a serial child abuser. I hope the good people of Washington state move to lock him up for life.

In North Carolina, the young son of Paul and Debbie Salvetti middle-school aged son told school authories and police that he was locked in his room and given little to eat.

The 13-year-old boy told authorities at Southeast Middle School that was being abused at home by his parents. He was not a student at the school as he had been taken out of the school system in January to be homeschooled. The boy said his room’s window was boarded up and the door was locked from the outside. He escaped by kicking a hole through the wall to get out.

School authorities then notified the Winston-Salem police who visited the school to investigate the child abuse report. Police interviewed the boy, whose name has not been released, and noticed that he was malnourished. He weighed 87 pounds that day - two pounds lighter than two years ago. (Remember he’s 13!) The boy gained 10 pounds in four days after being taken to a hospital.

The boy is now in the custody of the Department of Social Services and his parents are in jail on $5,000 bond.

Paul Joseph Salvetti, 44, is charged with one count of felony child abuse and one count of misdemeanor child neglect.  Debbie Salvetti, 38, is charged with two counts of felony child abuse and one count of misdemeanor child neglect.

Police were investigating the Salvettis since May, when their son ran away.  I’m sure the parents will use his running away as an excuse to locking him in his room. But starving him? I’d like to see them explain that.

53-year-old Edmonton man (cannot be named) pleads guilty to incest, bestiality, and sexually assaulting his daughter for over 14 years.

He had been previously convicted for sexually assaulting his children in the past, yet when he was released he was allowed to live with them again. Two days later he raped his then-eight-year-old daughter and continued to do so for the next 14 years.

This man is sick. He’s owned many dogs, all female. He would beat them with chains and bats if they would not have sex with him, sometimes to death. Who does this?

He also had sex with his daughters horse, Princess.

On one occasion, after raping his daughter (now 18), he tried to force her to have sex with her new dog, a male chocolate Labrador named Kit-Kit.

He has demonstrated multiple times for long periods of time that he is incapable of handling his penis. This is another case where castration should be considered during sentencing… I’m also hoping for his gang-rape during prison…

Valeeka Gartrell, 27, was brought to the hospital by her mother and step-father for pre-birth complications.

The parents had to be informed by the hospital staff, that Valeeka had already given birth.

The father rushed home to find the baby in a plastic bag in the garage.

Her attorney is saying postpartum depression is to blame, and it sounds like this could be the case.

Is postpartum depression a valid excuse or should we still be sending her off to jail?

Thanks Roberta, for the PBB tip!

In Colorado Springs, Tracie Preston will be sentenced to between 55 and 75 years for killing her eight-month-old daughter, Bianca Limerick. Preston admitted to throwing the baby hard against a bed rail. She’s also admitted to pulling Bianca’s arm so hard the bone snapped. Bianca died as a result of blunt trauma to the head.

Police found Bianca dead in her mother’s minivan. Preston said she threw the baby on the floor and later found that she was dead. She then put the girl in her car seat and drove around Colorado for at least a day.

The associate coroner who performed the autopsy ruled that Bianca had battered baby syndrome, which is an indication of repetitive child abuse. Investigators found she had at least a dozen old rib, arm and leg fractures.

Finally, an abuser who’s getting what she deserves – dying in prison.

In Enid, Oklahoma, Christian Carpenter, 20, and her husband, Amin Mohammed, 30, are charged in with two counts of child abuse for leaving their one- and two-year-old children home alone in a house littered with human and dog feces and urine.

Police were called to do a welfare check on two children who may have been home alone. When they arrived, the officer could smell feces and urine from the front porch. Upon entering, the officer found the two-year-old with feces smeared all over his body. The one-year-old was laying in a filthy crib with an empty bottle and a nasty blanket.

The mom’s excuse? The babysitter didn’t show up when it was time for her to go job hunting. She told police she was only going to be gone for a few hours but ended up going out with friends afterwards.

She also told police that she knew excrement had been on the walls for three or four weeks but she hadn’t felt like cleaning the mess up. The father said he didn’t have time to clean it up either.

Geez, why don’t you get off your sorry asses and clean up after your kids and animals, make sure they have a clean house to live in, and stay home and take care of your kids instead of going out with friends. Why is this so hard?

I can’t tell if these people are stupid, insane or on drugs, but I hope they get put away and their kids adopted by someone who wants to spend time parenting them.