A lone toddler wearing only pajamas and a diaper was found wandering in the middle of a Florida street on Sunday, which led police to a filthy home where they found the father passed out in his bed, authorities said.
The sheriff's office said it received multiple 911 calls on Sunday of a 2-year-old child “walking in the middle of the street in pajamas with a heavily soiled diaper.”
Prior to the incident, witnesses say that they saw the child in the front yard of a nearby home and they took the child to its home, where they found the father “passed out in his bed intoxicated,” police said.
Deputies who arrived at the scene described the horrendously filthy and dangerously unsafe living conditions in and around the house, with tools, garbage, and animal feces littered around the premises.
They also found an emaciated dog “with an ear that was almost rotted off and fur missing from its body,” the sheriff's office said.
The police’s description of the house defies imagination.
“The residence was in deplorable living conditions with several alcoholic beverage containers, bugs swimming in toilet water, and a sink piled high with several inches of cigarette ash to the point the sink was no longer visible,” the sheriff's office said.
“Pill bottles were scattered throughout a spare room and on top of living room shelves along with exposed razors and hypodermic needles, which were all accessible to the child.”
Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly condemned the situation, stating “No child should be living in deplorable conditions with an adult who obviously doesn’t care about their wellbeing.”
“The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office has no tolerance for anyone endangering children or animals,” he added.
The Sheriff also commended the witnesses who alerted authorities.
“I am thankful to our residents who ‘saw something and said something’ so that our deputies could intervene,” Staly said in a written statement.
Judy was arrested and charged with “Child Neglect without Great Bodily Harm” and “Abandon Animal to Die, Sick, Diseased, or Infirm.”
The man was booked into the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility where he is being held on a $4,000 bond, police said.
The Florida Department of Children and Families and Palm Coast Animal Control are also probing this incident, and their investigation is currently ongoing.