Two Texas women are accused of endangering a 2-year-old girl after game camera footage showed the child wandering alone in a field around 3 a.m. in near-freezing temperatures.
Haley Peoples, 21, and her mother, Rebecca Kelly, 50, were arrested Friday, according to the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office. The investigation began when a property owner reported at 6 a.m. that her game camera captured a young child walking alone in the woods hours earlier. The girl wore only a dress and no shoes while temperatures were in the 40s.
Deputies immediately launched a search. Not long after, the child’s mother called authorities.
“At 7:20 a.m., a woman later identified as Haley Peoples reported that her 2-year-old daughter had ‘gotten out of the home’ earlier that morning,” the sheriff’s office said. Peoples claimed she found her daughter outside at 4:15 a.m. but waited several hours to alert law enforcement, even as deputies searched the area.
Deputies visited the home and said they found unsafe living conditions, including trash, soiled clothes, rotting food, rat droppings, and a strong urine odor. The girl was also found soiled, according to the sheriff’s office. Peoples refused care for the child and declined to change her clothing, a detail deputies said contributed to detaining her.
Four children lived in the home, including the toddler seen on video and three siblings.
Kelly arrived while deputies were investigating but left soon after being asked to wait for a supervisor. Deputies later learned she went to an elementary school and tried to remove the three other children from class before 9 a.m. Staff reported she claimed CPS was on the way and told the children not to discuss the early morning incident, calling it a “private family matter.”
Officials said this interfered with a child-safety investigation and put the children at further risk. Kelly was detained at the school, and all four kids were taken to the hospital for evaluation.
Peoples faces a charge of abandoning and endangering a child with imminent danger of bodily injury. Kelly was arrested for interfering with an investigation of abuse or neglect. Both were booked into the Bexar County Jail, and officials confirmed to Law&Crime that neither woman remains in custody.
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