It wasn't Halloween and this was no trick-or-treater in a skeleton costume:
A 10-year-old boy reportedly weighing only 35 pounds was taken for medical treatment after being found knocking on doors Saturday evening asking for food.The boy's mother, 37-year-old Kelleen Deon Murray Auguste, of the 900 block of Southwest Versailles Avenue, was arrested on a charge of felony child neglect. The state Department of Children and Families took custody of the six other minor children in the home, according to Port St. Lucie police.
Auguste is being held at the St. Lucie County Jail on $150,000 bail.
The 10-year-old's weight is less than half the normal weight of a boy his age, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
None of the other children appeared to be malnourished, police spokesman Robert Vega said.
As is often the case with abused kids, he didn't want to spill the beans (he'd have tried to eat them in any case):
According to Vega, about 7:30 p.m. Saturday, a woman in the 900 block of Southwest Cornelia Avenue answered a knock on her door to find a young boy asking for food. The boy was filthy and disheveled, with matted hair. The woman started feeding the boy, then called 911.The boy allegedly climbed out of a window at Auguste's home and went through the neighborhood looking for food. Vega said when officers spoke to the boy, he started telling them different stories, including that he had been living in the woods and in a shed in his backyard and that his name was Mike Tyson.
Based on his dehydrated and malnourished condition, the officers called an ambulance and the boy was transported to the St. Lucie Medical Center, then later taken to Palms West Hospital in Palm Beach County.
Meanwhile, the Old Lady Who Lived In A Shoe called police to report the escaped boy missing. When arrested and questioned as to his state, she claimed he hadn't been able to keep any food down, a condition that seemed to have cured itself by the time he had his first meal at the neighbor's house. Whether his skin had also been rejecting soap and water the mother didn't say.
Posted by floridacracker at June 11, 2007 02:23 PMGood Lord..
Posted by: csason at June 12, 2007 05:42 AMthanks Donnah.
weird world.
it's nice how you monitor some of the wicked stuff ... well, it's good the way you do it with your wit, humor, and decent spirit.
Fred
Posted by: Fearless Fred at June 12, 2007 05:57 AMThe story states that the children were "reportedly home schooled".
There is not adequate tracking of children in Florida.
A student can never return to the class and that's it, or a parent can withdraw a child, but unless another school request their files the child just disappears.
On several occasions I have had to be tenacious in asking school social workers to look into a missing student. Fortunately ,so far, they have turned up, but only after an extensive search, or because the adult has found out that they were being sought.
Many other times, when updating a file at the end of the year, I have found months of missing attendance between one school district and another.
My point being...I can see how this happened.
Posted by: nancy at June 12, 2007 07:31 PM
Donnah, this is why I like your website. I read things here about subjects would ordinarilly make me say, "Feh, nice world we live in". But you frame them in a way that gets my interest.
As regards this story, even though I have a natural aversion to children in general, I read this and thought -- Ill-equipped as I am, Hell, even I could do a better job looking after this kid than his own mother. What part of simply providing decent meals, keeping them well-clothed, and making sure they go to school, do these people not understand?
Grrrrr .... nice world we live in.
Posted by: rg at June 13, 2007 11:25 PMCan you picture yourself answering the door to this? God bless the homeowner who immediately started feeding the boy and called 911.
Nancy, I agree about the lack of accountability with homeschooling, and I'm someone who's supportive of its ideals. Of course, all the homeschoolers I've known were in the library all the time, checking out a million books and had two parents in the home. That it can be used to cloak abuse is without a doubt. Just look at Shawn's case in Missouri and all the silly neighbors who didn't question that a single "parent" working full-time would be capable of homeschooling a kid.
Posted by: Donnah at June 13, 2007 11:42 PMI didn't mean the lack of accountability with home schooling in particular, sorry.
I don't believe these children were home schooled for one minute.
I was speaking of how kids can leave, and where and when they appear again is out of the contol of .....well that's the question,.....who is watching (?)
I think that the DOE has a definant system for tracking migrant children that is effective, but for regular kids, no.
For example, I get a new student in May and notice that he/she last attended school in Highlands County in Feb.
Well, didn't the other district wonder if that kid was buried in a shallow grave, or something ?
BTW, that's my favorite phrase for getting someone to get off their butt and start looking for my MIA kids.