An Umatilla woman who left her four children home alone in deplorable conditions for more than 12 hours with no food admitted she was “(expletive deleted) stupid” as she was being arrested on child neglect charges.
Sarah Jean Mahoney, 31, was arrested after she arrived home around 11 p.m. Monday. A pair of Marion County sheriff’s deputies had responded to the residence around 8 p.m. after receiving a report that the children – ages 12, 11, 9, and 9 – had been left unattended for an extended period of time.
The children told the deputies that the 12-year-old went to school on Monday but the younger three did not. They said Mahoney left the residence around 10:30 a.m. with her fiancé and left the 11-year-old in charge of “babysitting” the younger children, according to the sheriff’s office report.
After speaking with the 11-year-old, one of the deputies concluded that she didn’t have the maturity to look after herself unsupervised, much less babysit the 8- and 9-year-olds. The victims said their oldest sister arrived home on the school bus at around 4 p.m., and at 6 p.m. they called the reportee, who came to the home, the report said.
The reportee said she stood by at the residence for a half hour, but Mahoney never showed up. She said the victims had no way of contacting Mahoney. The reportee notified law enforcement and took the four victims to McDonald’s, where she fed them and returned to the Mahoney’s home to find she wasn’t back yet, according to the report.
Mahoney still wasn’t home when deputies arrived at 8 p.m. The deputies inspected the home and observed about 10 piles of dog feces, some fresh with insects flying around it, along with several puddles of apparent dog urine. There were about seven dogs and nine cats roaming about, with roaches, flies and other insects throughout the entire home. The sink was filled to the top with dirty dishes, and there was no food in the refrigerator, which also was in deplorable condition with insects and a bag of rotten potatoes inside, the report said.
Mahoney finally called and said she was taking a taxi home. When she arrived at around 11 p.m., she said she and her fiancé had left at around 10 a.m. to take a television to her mother-in-law’s home in Leesburg. She said when they were there, the starter in their vehicle quit working. Mahoney said by the time they finished changing the starter, it was about 8 p.m., according to the report.
Mahoney said neither she nor her fiancé have a valid driver’s license and the truck they were driving was unregistered. She said they were stopped by law enforcement in Lake County and her fiancé was arrested, so she walked back to her mother-in-law’s residence to call a taxi, the report said.
When asked if she felt the 11-year-old had the maturity to supervise herself and her younger sisters, Mahoney admitted she did not. When asked why she left the children unsupervised for almost 13 hours, she said, “I guess I’m just (expletive-deleted) stupid.” When asked why she left them home with no food, she said there was food in the vehicle that was impounded earlier in the evening, according to the report.
Mahoney was charged with four counts of neglecting a child without great bodily harm and taken to the Marion County Jail, where she’s being held on $8,000 bond. She’s scheduled to appear in Marion County Court on Nov. 5.