ROSWELL, Ga. — A Roswell mother is accused of leaving five children home alone in squalid conditions.
Officers tell Channel 2’s Mike Petchenik neighbors called them to a townhome on Roswell Commons Way last week, complaining about children playing in the street at 2 a.m.
“It was a mess,” said one neighbor who didn’t want to be identified. “They were wild.”
Police tell Petchenik when they arrived, they found a 12-year-old in charge of his four younger siblings, some of who were hanging out of a second story window.
“He told us that his mom put them to bed at night, it was 11 o’clock when she put them to bed and went to a friend’s house,” said Officer Lisa Holland with the Roswell Police Department. “He didn’t have a cellphone. There was no home phone, so the mom left the children home alone without any way to contact anyone if there was an emergency.”
Holland said when officers went into the home, they were met with an overwhelming odor of urine.
“Rotten food all over the place besides the kitchen, it was in the living room,” she said. “Roaches were crawling on the rotten food. Officers went into the bedroom where the children sleep and saw roaches all over the bedding, all over the clothes piled up on the floor.”
Holland said the roach problem was so bad, officers noted them falling from the ceiling in a bedroom.
“(They were) crawling up his leg,” she said.
Police have charged Beatrice Wright with reckless conduct and placed the kids into protective custody.
Petchenik reached Wright by phone Monday, but she hung up on him when he asked her questions about what happened.
They said she told officers she left the home briefly to take the family dog to the vet.
Neighbors told Petchenik they’ve been complaining to authorities for months about Wright failing to parent her children.
“Nothing has been done,” said neighbor Rebecca Smith. “It keeps getting passed from one case worker to another.”
Petchenik obtained another arrest report from June 2014 in which police charged Wright with reckless conduct after workers at an auto shop said they found her 4-year-old child wandering alone in the business.
“We’re hoping the kids can be in a better place,” said Smith. “That’s all we ever wanted was the kids to be in a safer and happy place.”