Parents Charged In Hialeah Child Neglect Remain In Jail
HIALEAH (CBS4) - A Hialeah couple charged with neglect after police found their toddler son living in filth in a hotel room remain in jail Monday night.
Hialeah police spokesman Detective Eddie Rodriguez said they received a 911 call Saturday about a two-year old who was not breathing and unresponsive at the Rainbow Inn Motel near West Okeechobee Road. Listen to the 911 call here.
"He looked like a concentration camp victim from a World War II documentary; he was emaciated," said Hialeah Police Detective Carl Zogby.
To see photos of the conditions in the hotel room, click here.
Arriving officers started CPR on the boy until paramedics arrived. He was taken to Miami Children's Hospital in serious condition.
According to Rodriguez, doctors said the child suffers from a pre-existing medical condition, but that had nothing to do with the condition in which he was found. First, he was severely malnourished and weighed only about 15 pounds, half of what his normal weight should be.
Also, there was fecal matter stuck to his skin, there were severe lesions on his back from being bed ridden, he was dehydrated and his toe nails looked as though they had never been cut.
"They just neglected him to death," Detective Zogby said.
Hialeah police said there were diapers in the room 3 feet high along with dead and live animals in the room. There was also fecal matter on everything in the room.
Rodriguez said the boys parents, Vincent Collins and Savannah Sholter, were arrested and each charged with one count of child neglect; they're being held on $7,500 bond.
Collins is a machinery technician for the U.S. Coast Guard. According to investigators, Collins and Sholter were staying in room 23 at the motel with a one-year-old baby while they left their other special needs son alone in room 19.
The Department of Children and Families has taken custody of the couple's second child.
