Another Award Winning Florida Family

Four dirty, naked children found in filthy mobile home



SEFFNER - Over at Lot 17, the shouting went on and on.

"For hours," said Kelli Miller, who lives one moble home over at the Larrett Mobile Home Park on Black Dairy Road. "You could hear them yelling and screaming all the time."

The family tied the mutts to the trampoline and, according to neighbors, left the babies in a muddy pen made of chicken wire, sometimes from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

On Thursday afternoon, when sheriff's deputies showed up to serve a traffic court warrant on the mother, they found four sweaty, dirty, naked children locked in a bedroom with toys, flies and a broken air conditioner. Deputies saw old food, dirty clothes, dishes and human feces.

They found Crystal Chavez, 21, the mother of the children, sitting in the air conditioning in another bedroom. Deputies took her to jail on four counts of child neglect and an outstanding charge of driving while her license was suspended.

At the same time, they arrested three others who lived in the home: Chavez's boyfriend, John S. Irick, 19, and his parents, Michael Boothe, 46, and Debra Boothe, 48.

Irick is charged with four counts of child neglect. The Boothes are each charged with four counts of child neglect and various counts of failure to report child abuse.


More at link...


EDIT: COPYRIGHT. PLEASE POST ONLY 4 OR 5 PARAGRAPHS
FROM THE COPYRIGHTED NEWS SOURCE PER DU RULES.

I read about this this morning. It's pretty big here, locally. Everyone's covering it.

Good! They should. It is disgraceful.

Again, we see that attitude of children being viewed as property.

Give children Constitutional protection, shit like this will go down big time.

It literally boggles my mind that minors don't have the same rights as adult citizens: kids being sent out of the country to "boot camps," to "ex gay" camps in the US, legal protection from assault masquerading as parental discipline, etc.

Why does a parent have COMPLETE control over a child in this country? Oh, I know this post will have people saying, this is my kid, I can do what I want, yada yada yada. Sorry -- you don't. Thye are not only humans, they are citizens of teh United States and should have full Constitutional protcetion.

it a Photoshop? I've never been really good at being able to tell. Probably just not looking that hard. Seemed in place, apropos.

the OP.

& you can tell. It's pretty funny though. Or maybe the rest of the story is just so sad that this seems extra funny. :shrug:

for the kids wasn't real either. Sigh.

I don't mean to insult the kids with the above remark, but that's what it looks like, and also appears how the "parents" treated them.

The story is bad enough has it is, it doesn't need to be 'enhanced'.

The OP should have noted that the image had been manipulated.

and hasn't stopped reproducing since then.

Sometimes I think abstinence would be the best choice.

She had her second chance. Now it's time for her kids to get theirs.

I hope the father of the older two is in a position to take custody.

It's a bad enough story without being dishonest with that picture.

Here is the actual link to the photo at the St. Pete Times.


http://www.sptimes.com/2006/05/13/images/pen450. jpg (remove spaces)




This is the "properties" info of the image in the opening post.

http ://tinypic.com/zmd312.jpg


It isn't a good idea to neglect mentioning this at the outset.

God's chosen leaders of the free world...

gays should not be allowed to parent children. :sarcasm:

How lovely.

users to me...

THey all do look like meth users... especially the older parents -- they look way older than they are, and they all have that "look."

No one was home Friday at the mobile home, which rents for $520 a month.

Since we've covered all the outrage at a negligent idiot and her fambly, let me take an offtopic second to address that they paid $520 a freakin month in rent alone to live in that wretched hole. Who can say that if that rent wasn't more appropriate that she would spend the extra money on clothes, food, or a bottle of Windex, but WTF man? You'd have to pay me $520/mo to live in lovely Lot 17.
Florida's coming real estate price correction is bad for speculators, but good for humanity. Sheesh.

I don't live in one and never have -- and sure as hell wouldn't in a hurricane state. But, there's nothing wrong with living in one, and $520 is VERY CHEAP rent in most of the US for such a large dwelling, especially in certain parts of Florida. In the area where I live in Central VA, a one-bedroom apartment is almost $900 a month. Yeah, you heard that right. And, it's not some big luxury apartment, either.

Four adults who work at least minimum wage jobs could have been able to rent a better place. Or, four adults not acting like sociopaths could have kept that place clean and tidy.

I don't make alot of money, so I understand what it's like not having money. There's a difference between being poor and being trashy.

That one was.

Apartments in FL go for similar prices as VA, around $800/mo. With an apartment, however, you get parking, stability from natural disasters, security guards sometimes, maintenance companies who care for the area, amenities such as free water or cable, and a obligation from the apartment complex to fix whatever appliances are broken in a timely fashion.

Let's say for the sake of argument she makes $9/hr, which is a generous expectation for an unskilled worker in a "Right-to-Work" state. After taxes, medical and dental, that's about $550 per two week paycheck, so that alone goes to rent.
She has to take the other $550 and spend it on food for 5, possibly 8, clothes for 5, water, electric, gas, school supplies for 1, phone, and that doesn't even cover cable TV or her "recreation", if she's into drugs or alcohol.

And of course, let's check the neighbors & article on what they say about the mobile home:

On Thursday afternoon, when sheriff's deputies showed up to serve a traffic court warrant on the mother, they found four sweaty, dirty, naked children locked in a bedroom with toys, flies and a broken air conditioner. Deputies saw old food, dirty clothes, dishes and human feces...

Flies buzzed against the window in the bedroom where the children were found. A foul odor seeped out. Strewn about the chicken wire pen were dirty baby dolls and a mud-covered Little Tykes car. Written in the film inside one window was this: I Love You...

"We have a joke," she (neighbor) said. "We say the flies are trying to get out, not in. It is disgusting."

Since we're calling out our income credentials, I guess I should say I make only a few thousand over the poverty level. It's pretty obvious that if I want to continue to live in a lifestyle I want, I shouldn't have 4 kids before I'm 22. But since life happens, the next best thing to do is find a mobile home in the area that doesn't gouge the hell out of me for the priviledge of simply living there. Actually the next best thing to do is to get the other three adults to agree to consistently cough up money for a larger apartment or rent a house (college towns have lots to rent), but... it's a specious argument to assume that the other three are paying their way fairly.

What is more certain is that when she rented the place initially she didn't mention that possibly three other adults will be living there as well, most slum...-er, landlords wouldn't accept that. More than likely they're dropping money on whatever is needed only after she exhausts her own income, which may be why not one out of four adults thought, "Hey, maybe I should kick in & fix the place up today."

She is separated from her husband, which it mentions. We don't know if the trailer is rented by her, her boyfriends, his parents, or some combination. We also don't know which if any of them are working. If all four of them were working full time though, they definitely could afford a better place. If one or more of them weren't working, they ought to have some time to clean up the place and/or watch the children so they don't have to be locked in the bedroom or the chicken wire pen outside. If she is the one stuck working all the time with three adults not contributing financially or to helping out, she made a rather poor decision especially since we know that the man is not the father of her children, they haven't been together very long, and she has already proven that she can leave a man since she left her husband.
Someone mentioned the possibility that these people might have a meth problem. From what I have heard about meth users, this is a possibility.

married and they love our fearless leader, So what are you bitchin' about?!?

:sarcasm: