An Oklahoma couple have been arrested on child neglect charges after police say their three-year-old daughter was found walking alone along a highway and her baby sister was discovered covered in several days’ worth of feces and urine inside their mobile home.
Police were called on Friday after a driver reported picking up a toddler who nearly walked in front of his truck on Highway US 62 in Chicasha.
A neighbor who witnessed the incident said the little girl was crying and telling the Good Samaritan that she wanted to go home, but she could not tell the motorist and police her family’s address.
Parents jailed: Jazzmine Bennett (left), 27, and Darien Jeffers (right), 23, from Oklahoma, have been charged with endangering and neglecting their two young daughters
Victims: Police said the pair’s three-year-old was found wandering alone in the streets, while her one-year-old sister was left crying at home in a days-old diaper overflowing with feces
While the officers were investigating, a man and woman later identified as 27-year-old Jazzmine Bennett and 23-year-old Darien Jeffers drove up to them and said the lost girl was their daughter, reported KFOR.
The parents said they had another child inside their trailer home in the 800 block of Choctow Avenue, prompting the officers to inspect the residence.
According to court documents cited by Chickasha Express-Star, upon entering the trailer police ‘noticed a strong odor of feces, urine and other foul odors.’
The officers discovered a one-year-old girl ‘shaking and screaming in her crib’ while wearing a diaper leaking feces and urine that had not been changed in at least a couple of days.
The three-year-old was rescued by a motorist from Highway Us 62 in Chickasha, Oklahoma
Filthy home: When police entered the family’s trailer (pictured), they were struck by a foul odor of feces and urine
Priorities: The parents (seen together left) told police they had left the kids at home to get some food. Bennett also said they were planning to take they eldest daughter to the hospital to be treated for pink eye
The officer could not find a clean diaper to change the baby into, so he held her under the faucet in the kitchen to wash her off ‘and noticed small pieces of skin fall from the baby’s buttocks because it was stuck to the feces.’
A closer inspection of the crib revealed rodent droppings on the mattress, stains from feces and old food and dried milk in a sippy cup.
The mom-of-two is being held in jail on $100,000 bond and her children are now in protective custody
When police searched the trailer, they also allegedly discovered drug paraphernalia and small pieces of metal that were within the children’s reach.
Bennett and Jeffers reportedly told police they had left their children home alone to get some food. The mother also said they were planning to take their older daughter to the hospital later that day to be treated for an eye infection.
The parents were arrested on charges of child neglect, child endangerment and omitting to provide for a child, and both of their daughters were taken into protective custody and transported to the hospital.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the mother and father were being held in Grady County Jail on $100,000 bond each.
According to Jeffers’ Facebook page, he and Bennett are engaged. Photos posted on the woman’s page show the couple’s smiling daughters trick-or-treating on Halloween and spending time with their grandmother.