- MIAMI (Reuters) - A 2-year-old
girl whose mother was in jail survived alone in an apartment for nearly
three weeks on ketchup, mustard and food she found in the refrigerator
and kitchen cupboards, Jacksonville, Florida police said on Tuesday.
-
- The child's father found the toddler on Monday, draped
in a towel and sitting in an infant's bathtub in her mother's apartment,
police said.
-
- Police have charged the mother, Dakeysha Telita Lee,
20, with child abuse for not telling them she had left the girl alone at
home when she was arrested on Sept. 10 on an aggravated battery charge.
-
- The child, whose name was not released, was recovering
from malnutrition and Florida's Department of Children and Families, the
state child welfare agency, was investigating the case to determine where
to place the girl.
-
- "She had subsisted on mustard, ketchup, dried pasta.
She cleared out the lower cabinets looking for food as well as the refrigerator,"
Jacksonville Sheriff's Office spokesman Ken Jefferson said.
-
- "Everything was on the bed in the bedroom. Obviously
she had found other things than the ketchup to eat."
-
- The child's father, Ogden Lee, told the Florida Times-Union
newspaper he had been trying to contact Dakeysha Lee, from whom he is separated,
for two weeks, not knowing she was in jail.
-
- He finally tried the jail on Sunday and talked to his
estranged wife, who told him the girl was with neighbors. After knocking
on doors at her apartment complex without success, he had a manager let
him into the mother's apartment on Monday and found the girl, dirty and
covered with dried ketchup.
-
- "She grabbed me and wouldn't let go of me,"
he told the newspaper. "It really is a miracle how good a shape my
daughter is in. I don't know how she did it."
-
- Police said there was no evidence anyone had visited
the apartment during the time the child was alone.
-
- "The child is safe and in our care," said Pattie
Mallon, an official with the Department of Children and Families in Jacksonville.
"We are in awe of her spirit to survive and we are making every effort
to ensure her safety and well being."
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