Cynthia Calleia Left Her Baby With The Kids
Filed under: Assault, Beating, Child Endangerment, Child Murder, Child Neglect, Crime, Myspace
Cynthia Calleia and her son, Antoine Powell Jr.
St. Petersburg - According to Cynthia Calleia’s MySpace page, she couldn’t quite remember how many children she had. Her about me states, “Here i am a mother of 3 yes four great and wonderful little blessings!!!!” Cynthia must have forgotten all about her 4-month-old son Antoine Powell, Jr. when she left him in the care of her 3 other children, aged 9, 5 and 2. Actually, she was just too lazy to care about these little blessings and sadly, she only has three children now. That could be why her status is “bummed.”Â
Cynthia, 30, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of manslaughter, after baby Antoine died of complications from staph infection in April. According to court documents, Cynthia took Antoine to All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, FL in March because she “noticed something wrong.” What was wrong was almost every bone in that child’s body - including arm, legs, and ribs, were fractured.
There are no reports of Cynthia having a job, although her MySpace page lists her career as, “I work wink wink!!!” At first glance, I took this to mean she was hookin’ it on the streets or sold drugs. But oh no, that would mean she’d have to get out of bed. Turns out, Cynthia just liked to sleep, visit with neighbors in her apartment complex, and smoke - about 20 cigarettes a day. According to one neighbor, while she was outside smoking they would often urge her to go inside and take care of her kids. She must not have been worried since, ya know, her kids had it covered.
While she was sleeping, talking, and smoking, she left her other children to care little Antoine. I could be wrong here, but my guess is these other children were neglected by their mother in one way or another as well. So on top of just being kids who don’t have the mental or physical capacity to care for a newborn infant, at least one of the children had “behavioral problems” and had shown a history of violent behavior against another sibling. Anyone shocked? Yeah, didn’t think so.
Her oldest child had even been evaluated after admitting she heard voices telling her to kill her mother. Well, even that wasn’t enough for Cynthia to keep a closer eye on her new baby.
Reportedly, baby Antoine had been dragged around like a doll by the 2-year-old, squeezed so hard that his ribs broke, and repeatedly dropped on the floor when he wouldn’t stop crying by the 5-year-old and 9-year-old. Babysitters have said the children were also just generally “aggressive” and “violent” toward the baby.
Cynthia didn’t take Antoine to the hospital until not one, but TWO babysitters told her the baby was in severe pain and wouldn’t stop crying. One babysitter told investigators Cynthia told her she knew Antoine was in pain, but still did nothing for four days. Who were these babysitters? Were they there to fill in when the kids were at school, sleeping, or watching Dora the Explorer? All reports I’ve found have been vague on the purpose and identity of these babysitters.
The doctors who treated Antoine said his injuries were at least 7 to 10 days old, and an autopsy confirmed blunt force trauma in his little body. Little Antoine suffered for the next month in the hospital. He went into cardiac arrest, slipped in and out of a coma, and eventually died. According to Cynthia’s MySpace blog, she asked her friends and family to pray so they could bring him home so she could ignore him some more.
I want to make it very clear that I lay no blame on these children for what happened, especially given the skank of a mother they were cursed with. There is just no way these children can comprehend how fragile a 4-month-old baby is, especially without supervision from the parents, and ESPECIALLY from a child with major behavioral problems to begin with. I just hope these children do not live the rest of their lives blaming themselves.
All 3 children were placed in separate foster homes. Cynthia is being held on $500,000 bond at Pinellas County Jail.
TheImperialCerealKiller is covering this in our forums.
Hahaha…without any politicizing inflection whatsoever, I hereby instruct Athena to go with a staid Nancy Pelosi bob. But skip the Pelosi botox, ’cause it’s easy to get carried away with that sh*t.
And back to the case at hand: I know I like to wax political, and I don’t usually do it on purpose. It’s actually just hard to separate out politics from many of the issues these horrible cases force us to think about. So, I’m not trying to make a political statement when I say the following:
WTF is wrong with this picture: mom is not working. Mom is basically useless. May have serious substance abuse problems, may have mental problems, may in fact be mentally deficient. If she’s not working, she’s probably getting money from that state. I’d like to ask WTF is up with the state doing such a terrible job of watching over its most vulnerable parties–this pathetic, utterly incompetent woman and her children? Why wasn’t there some stae subsidized childcare? Why wasn’t there some effort to educate this woman–if not to get her employed at least to train her to be a decent parent? And didn’t any state worker ever have a serious talk with this woman about birth control? OH WAIT, probably not. After all, this is LITERALLY the state in which “abstinence only” teaching in schools has resulted in a terrifyingly large percentage of FL teenagers believing that drinking Mountain Dew after humping prevents you from getting pregnant. The state should have been paying for a 3-month depoprovera shot for this incompetent disaster of a parent, and childcare or at least some PARENT TRAINING. Damn.
LOL p.s. to Katyk: I’d be a bad deputy for this task! I’d probably be a corrupt cop
guidlines for free health care for kids thru age 19 (may of been raised for full time students up to age 22) are quite high.
http://jfs.ohio.gov/ohp/bcps/hshf/hs_fact.stm
here is just an example of the CHIP health program. http://www.chipcoverspakids.com/ “We cover all Kids”
income and family size guide:
http://www.chipcoverspakids.com/upload/admin/File/2008_FPIG_CHART_web.pdf
my kids are fully covered no co pays under a program called Healthy Start.
as for me I do not have insurance but I live in a county that has passed a tax levy that covers medical care for those that can’t afford it. The university Hospital does an income analyse and set your pay level.
Lucky for me I am healthy (knock on wood) I had a friend not too long ago that was assaulted and he got treated at no charge. Just last week I went to get my teeth cleaned at the community health center (we have about 8 listed in our phone book) I was charged $19.
so No it isn’t the cost - it is the laziness of filling out the forms - producing the proof of income and keeping appointments in most cases.
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seems like the neighbors seen alot of what was happening - now I am concerned why no one was reporting this bitch!!! remember the uncle tony in fla. that was holding his nephew under water and you all wanted to hang the neighbor for not reporting it… what is different with these by standers ?
Although, honestly, the process of bureaucracy are daunting even for people who are together. Just setting up my insurance and benefits with my nbew employer was so fricking complicated Iwas seriously tempted to just let it slide…and I’m a fairly competent person!
It is a pain, but in this case she could have walked in the ER and they would have taken that baby instantly and paper work and everything else would have come second. We are talking about an emergency medical situation (namely grave injurys to a child). Even the coldest hospital would not dare face the liability of that child dying right after they refused care.
The system is bad though, normal care is very hard to get if you are indigent. I work at a dental clinic for special needs and indigant kids two days a month and as far as I know it is the only one in all of metro atlanta. The patient have to be check out by a social worker first to qualify though. Who knows how fast they get them to my chair from the time they seek help.
Oh, definitely. I meant it’s a pain to get social services in general, and is a process someone like this might not be able to negotiate. That doesn’t mean she shouldn’t have taken her baby to the hospital if she knew he was in pain. I’d like to know more–what is this woman’s IQ, is she a druggie, and so forth. We already know she’s a pathetic excuse for a parent. No question about that.
I think drugs are a given here. I hate to judge abook by its cover but I’ve seen the look on her face before and it screams crack. I think she didn’t get care because she knew she’d get in trouble.
It doesn’t take money or a high IQ to dial 911. Between her neighbors, the babysitters and the baby’s father….SOMEONE should have intervened on this child’s behalf! Why do so many people just look the other way when they KNOW (or even suspect) this shit is going on? There had to be some outward physical evidence of injury if this baby was that banged up. A bruise, a cut, bumps… I can’t believe he could be dragged around, squeezed, dropped.. or whatever and not show any signs.
As for the hospital… if she was in fact on welfare… money was not an issue. Just inconvenience and trying to explain how this happened and why it took her so damn long to do anything about it.
9 yr. old needs serious inpatient care. Soon.