The mother who left her four children unattended and returned to find police and fire personnel converging on her lawn had been the victim of a domestic assault barely 48 hours before, police said.
Deputies responding to a call in the 5300 block of Hillcrest Jan. 29 discovered four shivering children in a neighbor’s living room–where they’d been carried after a five-year-old girl rescued herself and three younger siblings from potential disaster.
The girl removed her sister, 3, and two brothers, 2 and 7 months, from the home when chicken left cooking on the stove began to burn and fill the house with smoke.
The children’s 22-year-old mother told police she forgot to turn off the stove when she left to run an errand.
Police estimate the woman was gone about 25 minutes.
‘Unfortunately, she made an extremely poor and potentially fatal decision,? said Sgt. Matt Baldes, of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Independence Township substation. ‘She admitted it was probably the dumbest thing she’s ever done.?
Baldes, who was requested at the scene for a routine investigation, said it was likely the 5-year-old saw food beginning to burn and inadvertently turned the stove up in her attempt to turn it off.
When police arrived they found two of the stove’s burners’including the one under the chicken’on high, and the broiler going, as well.
The woman told investigators she went to cash some change in at the Coin Star machine at Kroger’s, and from there went to CVS to purchase a replacement for the telephone broken by her boyfriend during the earlier domestic incident.
Neighbor Cheryl Hornik said she and her husband were awakened two nights earlier when someone knocked on the door and asked to call 91.
Officers arrived and arrested a 27-year-old man, who is the father of all four children, on charges of domestic violence.
The children’s mother told deputies her boyfriend was drunk and became upset. According to the woman’s statement, the boyfriend accused her of being unfaithful, threatened several times to ‘kill her? and then broke the telephone and threw it in the trash when she attempted to call 911.
She also told police, during the argument he threw both a beer bottle and a cup at her. Neither object hit the woman, but deputies observed a dent where the cup hit the wall, at about the height of the woman’s head.
The man admitted to police he argued with his girlfriend, but would not elaborate on the details. He stated he was just trying to get his four children and leave.
The man, who also has felony warrants out of New York, was lodged in Oakland County Jail, where he remains.
The following Tuesday, the same neighbor warmed four shivering children in her living room after a another neighbor heard the siblings crying in the snow while smoke drifted from their home.
‘She’s probably not thinking right, they had a very bad week,? Hornik said of the mother. ‘But that’s no excuse, she should not leave those kids alone for any reason.?
The children had bare feet and were dressed only in shorts and t-shirts when the neighbor brought them in, she said.
‘I’m just happy that little 5-year-old had enough brains to get herself and the other kids out of the house,? said Hornik. ‘But my heart just broke when I saw those kids out there dressed like that. Thank God that neighbor was going by, because those kids would have frost bite if they stayed out there any longer.?
Police reports were forwarded to the prosecutor pending charges, and the Family Independence Agency is conducting a review, as well. The children are staying with their maternal grandmother in Waterford.