The plight of children born to parents unable to provide proper care, whether for emotional or financial reasons, is a story as old as time.
Despite attempts by the government and law enforcement to deliver ideal solutions and propose preventive measures, child abandonment is rife in the United States.
While the term “child abandonment” is often used to describe only physical abandonment, it encompasses emotional abandonment, neglect, and abuse.
It includes cases where parents fail to provide the necessary care for their child over an extended period; in many cases, a parent has no regard for the child’s safety, physical health, emotional health, and welfare.
A recent example of such a case happened in Harris County, Texas, in October 2021, when authorities found three neglected children living in an apartment complex with a deceased body of a male child.
The police found skeletal remains of the sibling when they entered the apartment; he died a year before the discovery, and the body was left there to decompose. The medical examiner found evidence of multiple blunt force injuries.
10 /10 911 Call
On Sunday, October 24, 2021, at around 3 pm, a teenager made a phone call from a third-floor apartment unit in the Houston area.
Officers from the Harris County Sheriff’s Department responded to the ring, visited the apartment, and found a horrifying scene inside.
Three young kids aged 15, 10, and 7 were in bad condition, seemingly abandoned by their parents. The most shocking discovery was the skeletal remains of another sibling, who died a year earlier at age 8.
9 /10 Pitch-Black Apartment
According to Sgt. Dennis Wolfford, the officer leading the investigation into the case, the teenager, did his best to take care of all his younger siblings.
The teenager described in the phone call that the body of his deceased sibling was in the next room. When the police arrived at the scene, the apartment unit was pitch-black as it did not have electricity.
Flashlights scared away the roaches running across the floor. Officers believed the teenager reached the point where he physically and mentally couldn’t cope with his circumstances anymore.