This Made My Dad Cry

Neglected children found in apartment
By: Tia Lyons - El Dorado News Times - Published: 04/16/2009

A landlord cleaning vacant apartments on Tuesday found a pair of 1-year-old siblings abandoned, soiled and dehydrated inside a unit that was described as dirty and foul-smelling, and El Dorado police said it was difficult to tell how long the children had been left there.

The children’s mother, 22-year-old Tavia Tillis, provided conflicting accounts of where she had left them while she went out of town with her boyfriend over the weekend, according to a police report.

Capt. Billy White, of the El Dorado Police Department, said an arrest warrant for two counts of endangering the welfare of a minor was issued for Tillis, and she turned herself in to police at about 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday

Detective Todd Surber is investigating the case.

Police responded at 6:29 p.m. on Tuesday to a report of a welfare concern at an apartment building in the 700-block of North Jefferson.

Mary Gregory, who was identified in the police report as the landlord of the apartment building, said she entered a unit to clean it, and when she went inside a bedroom, she saw the two girls alone, sitting on a mattress on the floor.

Gregory told police that Tillis had been evicted from the apartment and had supposedly moved out two weeks ago. She noted that she had not seen her at the apartment "in a while," but she had seen her boyfriend's car there twice over the weekend.

A police report described in disturbing detail the condition of the children and the apartment.

Upon stepping inside the apartment, officers said they first noticed a table that is believed to have been propped against the door to keep it closed. The only other furniture inside the apartment was another table and mattress on which the girls had been sitting.

They said the apartment was "very dirty and smelled heavily of urine and feces." There was feces and broken glass on the floor in the bedroom where the children had been found, and a knife and a bottle of alcohol were easily within their reach, police said.

Both girls were dirty, their lips were cracked, and they had dried mucous around their noses and mouths. One of the girls reportedly had what appeared to be feces around her mouth and on her hands, and the other girl had feces on the bottom of her feet, according to police.

Police said that a diaper worn by one of the girls was so soaked, that it dripped on the sidewalk as they carried her outside. The other girl was not wearing a diaper underneath her clothing.

They said there was no food or water in the apartment and the children "vigorously" drank a bottle of soda and two bottles of water that Mary Gregory provided them "as if they had not had anything to drink for a while."

After the girls were taken to Medical Center of South Arkansas for a checkup, police said they drank four bottles of baby formula and ate several packages of snack crackers. A doctor at MCSA said both girls were moderately dehydrated, their mucous membranes were very dry, and one of them had a severe diaper rash.

A worker with the Arkansas Department of Human Services said the girls will be placed in foster care while the case is being investigated further.

While at MCSA, police said they spoke with Tillis by phone, and she said she had left the children with another woman while she went out of town. The woman said the children were not left in her care, and she had not seen them in a couple of weeks.

Tillis reportedly told officers several times that she was on her way to MCSA, but they said she never showed up. Police also learned Tillis' boyfriend arrived at the apartment after officers left and asked a neighbor what was going on.

When he was told that the two children had been found inside the apartment alone, and police had taken them to the emergency room, he reportedly said Tillis told him that she left the children with her grandmother before they left town Saturday.

He also said she told him that she called and checked on the children.

Tillis was suspected in a similar incident that was reported last December in which the same two girls, along with an older sibling, 4, and a 2-year-old cousin, who had been left in Tillis' care, were found alone at the same residence.

White said Tillis is expected to make a first appearance in Union County District Court on Friday. He said the bound recommended in the arrest warrant was $50,000.