STANWOOD – Two young children remained in the care of a foster family Thursday while sheriff’s deputies and state caseworkers tried to find out why the children had been left alone in their locked home the previous day.
“We’re looking at possible felony abandonment,” said Snohomish County sheriff’s spokeswoman Jan Jorgensen. “There are so many things that could have happened.”
Neighbors called sheriff’s deputies just before 11:30 a.m. Wednesday after they heard the children screaming for nearly four hours inside a duplex in the 21530 block of Marine Drive.
Deputies forced their way into the south Stanwood home through a window after no one answered their knocks. The front door had been locked with a deadbolt.
Inside, deputies found a 21/2 -year-old girl hiding in a bedroom and an 8-month-old boy in a crib, Jorgensen said.
The children were in good condition and didn’t appear to be suffering from any health problems, Jorgensen said.
The residence was not dirty, but items had been left out that could have injured the children, she said. Jorgensen declined to say what was found.
Deputies were initially unable to locate the parents, who are in their early to mid-20s. Jorgensen didn’t know if detectives had spoken to the parents on Thursday. No one has been arrested, she said.
Investigators were told that the mother was at work and the father was at a neighbor’s home. Jorgensen couldn’t confirm the parents’ whereabouts, saying detectives were still investigating the case.
State Child Protective Services caseworkers hadn’t been to the home or had contact with the family before Wednesday’s incident, said Kathy Spear, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Social and Health Services.
No one answered the door at the duplex Thursday evening.
Jorgensen said the recent tragedy of two young Kent boys who starved to death while under their mother’s care illustrates the need for police to thoroughly investigate child-abuse cases.
“We always take these cases very seriously,” she said. “One minute is too long to leave these children alone.”
Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@ heraldnet.com.
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