A Putnam County woman has been charged after court records said she left her children in deplorable conditions and one child wandered into the street while her boyfriend was asleep.
Kathryn Dawn Patton of Hurricane is charged with three counts of felony child neglect creating gross risk of death or serious bodily injury, according to a criminal complaint from Putnam County Magistrate Court.
May 30, Putnam County deputies were informed of a small child roaming in the road by himself. The caller said she found a boy about 3 years old in the middle of the road.
As a deputy was driving a man stopped him and asked if he had seen a little boy running around. The man said he is the boyfriend of the child’s mother, who was later identified as Patton. The complaint said the boyfriend, Earl Oldham, had been watching the child after Patton left that morning.
The man told deputies when Patton left he thought the boy was beside him in bed but when he woke up, he was nowhere to be found and the door to the home was wide open.
When the deputy got to the home, he met with the caller, who said she found the boy standing in the road wearing a tank top and diaper that was full of urine that was covering his body and the diaper was too small for his size.
The caller said she tried getting the boy’s name and finding out where he lived, but he was unable to talk, the complaint said. The caller took the boy to her home, called 911 and changed his diaper. The caller’s husband told deputies he went to the home he believed to be where the boy lived and yelled for someone inside the home but did not get an answer.
Deputies called the mother and learned she was in Nitro.
Once Patton arrived at the home, she told deputies she left her three children at the home with Oldham about 9:30 a.m. she told deputies Oldham was awake and smoking a cigarette when she left and she told him to lock the door behind her. Patton said Oldham does not live at the home but just stayed a night and he is not the father to any of her children.
Child Protective Services was called and a CPS worker responded to the scene.
The complaint said CPS and deputies observed a strong foul odor inside the home, which was in deplorable condition. A bathroom in the home was full of flies and other bugs and the bathroom was inaccessible because of furniture and junk inside, the complaint said. The only functional bathroom contained a toilet filled with feces, toilet paper and cigarette butts and a shower that was full of trash and other items.
The complaint said the refrigerator did not have any edible food inside and was not cold. The only food in the home was a small amount of snacks in the pantry.
All three children were removed from Patton’s custody.
Oldham was also charged with one count of felony child neglect creating gross risk of death or serious bodily injury.
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