A toddler discovered wandering alone on a Florida roadway in a severely soiled diaper led authorities to a residence in appalling conditions, where the child’s father was found unconscious and intoxicated, officials reported.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office responded on Sunday after receiving multiple emergency calls about a 2-year-old seen “walking in the middle of the street in pajamas with a heavily soiled diaper,” the department stated on Tuesday.
Before law enforcement arrived, bystanders noticed the child in the front yard of a nearby house. They escorted the toddler back inside, where they found the father, 44-year-old Ross Judy of Palm Coast, “passed out in his bed intoxicated,” authorities said.
Upon investigating the home, deputies discovered a hazardous environment littered with dangerous objects and refuse. Animal feces and filth covered the interior and exterior, and an emaciated dog—missing patches of fur and suffering from an ear that had nearly rotted away—was also found, officials reported.
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“The residence was in deplorable living conditions with several alcoholic beverage containers, bugs swimming in toilet water, and a sink piled high with several inches of cigarette ash to the point the sink was no longer visible,” the sheriff’s office detailed. “Pill bottles were scattered throughout a spare room and on top of living room shelves along with exposed razors and hypodermic needles, which were all accessible to the child.”
Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly condemned the situation, stating, “No child should be living in deplorable conditions with an adult who obviously doesn’t care about their well-being. The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office has no tolerance for anyone endangering children or animals. I am thankful to our residents who ‘saw something and said something’ so that our deputies could intervene.”
Judy was taken into custody and faces charges of child neglect without great bodily harm and animal abandonment resulting in suffering or illness. He was booked into the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility, where he remains held on a $4,000 bond.
Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Children and Families and Palm Coast Animal Control have launched separate investigations into the matter, which are still ongoing.
(ABC News)
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