Two toddlers in Florida were found alone in a tent outside of their parent’s mobile home. The 3 and 4 year old girls were found dirty and hungry in the tent that the family had been living in while their mobile home was being repaired. The girl’s parents left the girls alone to go sell their blood to blood banks to get money to but Methadone. The parents, who are facing child neglect charges, claim they didn’t leave their toddlers alone because the family dog was there. Read more about the awful parents after the jump.
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Florida police believe a pair of starving children was left to fend for themselves in a tent outside their mobile home by their own parents.
The 3- and 4-year-old girls were discovered dirty and desperate for food and water at their Lake Butler home last week by a woman who knew the couple, authorities said.
The parents, Mark and Kathy Tucker, have been arrested and face child neglect charges.
In their defense, the parents insisted their dog was on the scene to make sure the children were safe.
“They did say the children were protected because of the family dog,” Lt. Lyn Williams, of the Union County Sheriff’s Office, told WJXT 4 News in Jacksonville.
The woman who found the children told police she regularly met Mark, 25, and Kathy, 26, at a methadone clinic in Gainesville where they received drug treatment.
She said the two admitted to leaving their girls alone while a third daughter, 5, was at school. When the two told her they were going to try and sell their blood at a donation center instead of returning home, she went to their residence and found the two kids, The Gainesville Sun reported.
“It was just a terrible sight, terrible scene,” Williams told WJXT 4 News. “There was no food. There was no water. That was the first thing the children asked for.”
The tent was set up outside a mobile home, which was undergoing repairs. Police said it looked as if the family had been living in the tent, but the home had electricity and running water, Sheriff’s Deputy Carl Hanlon told The Gainesville Sun.
The Tuckers would sometimes drop their girls off with children’s grandparents. One grandparent told police the couple had left their children unattended before.
Department of Children and Families are working to help the kids and find “a safer environment with other family members,” Sheriff Jerry Whitehead said.
