Atlanta

Authorities: Man stabs wife, drives 3 kids to Atlanta

ATLANTA — Three children are with their grandparents after investigators say their father stabbed their mother at their Newton County home and then dropped the children and the mother off at Grady Memorial Hospital.

Leroy Coleman, 37, then turned himself into police at a DeKalb County shopping center early Friday morning.

Channel 2’s Steve Gehlbach talked with the children’s grandfather, who said the two girls and boy are OK. They are all under 4-year-old.

"He dropped her off down there because he knew he messed up," said the grandfather, who asked not to be identified.

The grandfather said he was called by police around 1:30 Friday morning to pick the children up from a parking lot outside a Walmart on Covington Highway in DeKalb County.

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But deputies, fearing they were in danger, put out a Levi's Call after midnight when Coleman never returned them to their home at their apartment complex in Newton County.

Investigators said he stabbed the kids' mother inside the apartment hours earlier.

The grandfather got a call from his daughter at the hospital, telling him what happened.

"That's when I went over to try to see about the kids. But the kids wasn't there. He had the kids," the grandfather told Gehlbach.

DeKalb police said Coleman called 911 himself about 30 minutes after the Levi’s Call was issued, telling them where he was.

The grandfather told Gehlbach that the children were found outside, walking in the middle of the night, and their father no longer had the family's car when he turned himself in.

Coleman is now charged with aggravated assault and three counts of cruelty to children.