After allegedly abandoning her three children and dogs at home to fester in appalling conditions, a mother in Indiana faces eighteen years in prison.
Ashley Rogers, 42, was taken into custody on three counts of mistreatment of a dependent after police inspected her home and discovered that her dogs and three children had been living in filth.
When Fort Wayne Police officers arrived at Rogers’ residence on April 30 at around 12:20 p.m. in response to complaints of a youngster threatening self-harm, they found the place covered in animal faeces, black mould, and piles of rubbish.
When police arrived, Rogers’s 17-year-old daughter and her 18-year-old boyfriend, Gentry Shelton, were inside the house with Rogers’s boyfriend, Antione Burnett.
According to an affidavit obtained by the Daily Mail, Burnett attempted to call Rogers on the phone to bring her home from work but was unable. Instead, he directed deputies to the home’s rear door, alerted them to the presence of violent dogs within, and left the premises.
Just as Rogers’s 13-year-old son came home, Shelton showed up in the back of the property.
[Officers] saw animal excrement fall from the back doorway. Officer T. Brown’s affidavit stated, “There was a lot of trash surrounding the home, including a refrigerator on its side just outside of the rear door.”
According to cops, the unplugged refrigerator was still full of food despite having damaged doors.
Before acknowledging that Rogers’s 17-year-old daughter was inside the house, Shelton first told the police that she wasn’t.
When police arrived at Ashley Rogers’ home, they discovered her three children and dogs living among dog poop, black mould, and mountains of rubbish. Ashley Rogers, 42, was detained for abandonment of a dependent.
Shelton reported to the police that his girlfriend had made self-cutting threats.
Rogers was subsequently contacted by police over the phone, but the affidavit states that she was “unconcerned about her daughter’s statements about harming herself.”
When the mother-of-three did return home, she stated that the adolescent was ’17 years old and was not her responsibility.’ ‘She advised that [the teen] had not been at her home for several months and that she did not know where she was or what she was doing,’ Officer Brown noted in the affidavit.
“The officers advised the home was in very poor condition with dog faeces, trash, mould, urine and general filth throughout the home,” the affidavit stated. “Rogers repeatedly advised [that] she wanted to leave the home and was going to leave her children in the care of [Shelton],” according to the documents.
According to the affidavit, police noted a “large amount” of dog waste and stated that the house had no running water, no refrigerator, very little food, and a toilet with dried excrement and no water.
Along with the majority of the windows, which were carelessly covered with boards, the house’s front and back doors were also shattered and could not be locked. There were several rooms with peeling paint, and parts of the ceiling and walls were either shattered or had fallen.
A file photo shows Indiana’s Fort Wayne. According to records, “the kitchen and bathroom counters were covered with dirty clothing, trash, dirty dishes and items with mould on them.” Police were summoned to a home there after hearing complaints of a kid threatening to kill themselves.
The basement’s laundry section, which was covered in black mould, “had nearly 2 feet of dirty clothing covering the floor,” and the house’s floor was covered in rubbish bags full of debris.
According to one of Rogers’s children, his mother came home every day when she wasn’t at work, and he and his 11-year-old sister resided at the house with Rogers.
However, Rogers was taken into custody by the police after they discovered she hadn’t visited the house in “several months.”
Additionally, it was discovered that Rogers’s 17-year-old daughter had an active juvenile warrant for her arrest for violating conditional release, something Rogers claimed to be aware of.
According to reports, the adolescent had disregarded juvenile probation and taken off her ankle monitor.
According to the records, “Officers checked the home and found [the 17-year-old] hiding under the kitchen sink in a small cabinet area where [Rogers] had been standing while officers were inside the home.” The adolescent was discovered with “superficial” cuts on her arms and legs.
Animal control removed all three dogs from the house because the surroundings were “not suitable for animals.” What alternative care the kids have been placed in is still unknown.
On Monday, Rogers appeared in court for the first time on three counts of neglect of a dependent after being arrested and put into Allen County Jail.June is when she is scheduled to appear in court again.
