BLYTHEVILLE, Ark. — A Mid-South mom is facing five counts of child endangerment after investigators found feces, flies and filth inside her Blytheville home. But most disturbing of all is five young children were found living in those conditions.
Neighbor Darrell Thomas has a perfect view of the house on Stemac Drive.
“It’s kids that run up and down this street all throughout the day. Sometimes they have shoes on, sometimes they don’t have shoes on,” he said.
But Wednesday, when he peeled back the blinds, the kids were nowhere in sight.
“It just was a shouting match and the hissy fissy.”
Police and 29-year-old Charlese Whitfield were in a heated back-and-forth after they showed up and saw the conditions she and her five kids, ages 9 through 3, were allegedly living in. The little white house hid a heap of horrors.
“A whole bunch of bugs and water was everywhere, clothes was everywhere,” said Toricka Cannon, a friend of the suspect.
Police say they found flies, maggots and garbage all over the home. They say the toilet was overflowing with feces and urine and the floors were covered with about a quarter-inch of water.
“It was just dirty up in there.”
Cannon has known Whitfield for about seven years, but yesterday was her first time inside the dirty dwelling.
The home is not only filthy inside — WREG found broken-out windows, overflowing trash bins, abandoned cars and an overgrown yard.
And worse still, police say Whitfield’s 9-year-old daughter showed signs of abuse.
The kids now stay with their grandmother. The grandma wasn’t home, but Cannon says her grandkids are doing just fine.
As for their mother: “I feel sorry that she up in there, but when she get out, she needs to do better.”
