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Children Wander Onto Interstate Entrance Ramp While Parents Drink in Separate Bars

By Janet Langjahr

Couple have four children, ages 4, 3 (twins) and 1 years old.

At about 8pm, Husband allegedly left children, alone, to pick Wife up at a bar. Wife refused to leave with him, however.

So what did Husband do? He reportedly headed for a different bar with a friend.

The children had no food. Their apartment was littered with broken beer bottles and trash.

Husband allegedly didn’t return home until many hours later, about 8am the following morning.

In his absence, two of the children, the twins, wandered outdoors, to the entrance to an interstate highway. They were nearly run over.

The perpetrator became their savior by calling the authorities.

Husband allegedly admitted to authorities that this incident wasn’t the first where he had left his children unsupervised such that they wandered out into the street.

Police arrested and detained Husband for child abuse. Interestingly, Wife was not charged - because she said she didn’t know Husband had left the kids alone. After all, she was reportedly off in a different bar when all this happened.

The children are now in protective custody, however, pending a determination of whether the children should be released to their mother …

At the bar?

Read more in this Arizona Republic article: Dad accused of child abuse after tots strayed to I-17.

Full post as published by Florida Divorce - Child Custody - Domestic Abuse Law on June 23, 2008 (boomark / email).