Infant Found With Insects Eating Her Skin In Poop Filled House of Horrors

Infant Found With Insects Eating Her Skin In Poop Filled House of Horrors

“Jennifer, in your bathroom alone, you got dirty diapers on the floor, you got… you’ve got poop on the floor. Just stepped on poop in your back… that’s all you’re doing about why your house is filthy. You don’t even know there’s [ __ ] on the floor.”

Friends, today’s Muppet is Jennifer Island. On August the 29th, 2013, 14-month-old Alana was found in a pond. She was unresponsive. Police bring in her mother, Jennifer, for questioning. Now, some of these details are going to leave you horrified, so you’ve been warned. All the images you’ll see are directly from the crime scene.

“Tell me what happened.”

“What happened was… I can tell you what happened from the time I got up to all this mess happened. Got up at 6:00 a.m. this morning, put them in the shower, and I bathed them real good. I scrubbed them up, got them ready for school. We loaded up about 7:00, 7:05 somewhere in there, and I got him to the school. We sat there until 7:20 when the bell rang, and somebody came and let him get out of the car.”

“You’re driving to school every day?”

“Yes, sir. I drive over there and I pick them up every afternoon. I get over there about 1:50… well, I actually, my bad, they get out about 1:15, and I get there about 12:30 in the afternoon and I sit there and wait. I got them to school and I came back and I made scrambled eggs and bacon. They’re always with me or my husband.”

“Now, do you bathe all the kids together?”

“No, I normally bathe them all separately because it’s girls and boys. But with it being such a rush in the morning times to make sure everybody’s properly bathed and everything else, I just get them all in there, scrub them down real quick, get them out, and get them, you know, dressed and dried and all that good stuff. And then I get them, you know, sat down in the living room on a couch with their book bags on their laps, and they can sit in there and watch Disney Channel, which is usually Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or whatever other cartoon they like to watch. And then I get them to school.

“And like I said, when I got back home today, this morning, I got home approximately about 7:25, 7:30 roundabout area, and I made scrambled eggs and bacon for the two girls and myself. Okay, we all sat there and we ate our breakfast. And then I had the two girls in my bedroom with me ’cause I had to get in class. So I had them sitting right there with me and I give them some graham crackers to keep them, you know, occupied, and put some cartoons on. And so I done my class, and they were sitting there.”

“And classes online?”

“Yes, sir, classes online. And they were sitting there and they were watching their cartoons. Well, when they started getting up and going and playing and everything, I logged out of class, and I was right, you know, I was listening for them. And then I heard them in the living room, so I went in the living room. You know, they were playing in the hallway, and I seen them running back and forth my door, so I didn’t think nothing of it. So I went out there and I sat in the living room, and they got in the living room, and I watched them play. And most of the time I play with the girls when they’re at home.

“Well, they laid down, both of the girls laid down at about 9:30, 10:00 to take a nap. And they slept for… shoot, she slept until about 11:45, and Alana slept until about 15 after 12 today. They got up and I told them, ‘Okay baby, get your shoes on.’ And I had got my shoes on and everything, and we went out and we got in the van. It took me a few minutes to get both of them buckled up and appropriately secured. And then I walked around and I, after I closed the sliding door, and I walked around, got in the car, buckled myself up, cranked the car, and I started backing up to go to the school.

“I got over there and I was, no surprise, the first one in line waiting. And I sat there, and I sat there, and I sat there, and I sat there. And me and the girls were listening to music on the radio like we usually do. And 1:55 rolled around, the bell hadn’t rang, didn’t come out yet. Almost 2:00 came around, and here they finally come out. He was the first one, he got in the car. She came out next, and then creeped around the corner. And I got them all in the car, and I got them all buckled in. We went back to the house.

“Well, at the time they had homework, so I had them all go in my room where I can keep them all right there in one little section ’cause we all usually come in in the afternoon, sit on my bed, and I go through folders. All of them did great, didn’t have any homework. He didn’t have any homework. She had a little bit of math, so I helped her. And then they went back in the living room. And every time I bring them in, I always lock the handle on my front door. And they went in the living room and they started watching their cartoons while I was helping with her homework.

“Well, Alana was in the room playing, in my bedroom playing, so I knew right where they were, so I didn’t have any problems with that. Well, I checked on T… asked me to check when his show was coming on, which was called Rise of the Guardians, which is a cute show for kids. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. I haven’t seen that one yet, but it’s a really adorable show. Every day he bugs me a hundred times, ‘Is Jack Frost on? Is Jack Frost?’ ‘No baby, I don’t know, I’ll have to check.’ And so it came on at 4:20. So I told him, ‘Sit down in there, and just a minute when I get done with this.’

“She finished her homework and she went in there. And I had checked on the TV when I got done with her, and it took me maybe about five minutes to type in ‘Rise’ on the TV, and it popped up Rise of the Guardians at 4:20, ’cause I have Cox Cable and I’ve got the box and you can type in…”

“Why’d it take so long to type it in? You said five minutes.”

“Around about time, because when you push in one letter, it pauses to try to search for every available name that starts with R. And then you have to go through and you have to click in because it’ll tell you how many possibilities there are, like 2, 3, 4, 800 possibilities, right? And then you type in a little bit more of that, and the possibilities start going lower and lower and lower. Well, I got in ‘Rise’, and it came up with like 45 different titles, so I found Rise of the Guardians, which is right there practically on top. Clicked on it, and it said the first showing was at 4:20 this afternoon.”

“Okay.”

“So I went into the living room, I got it on channel 203, which was HBO. We all sat down in the living room and we watched the movie. Well, it got to the point where the Sandman was fighting off evil dreams that the Boogeyman had caused the children to dream, and it was actually called the children’s fear. They were black horses, scary little things, and he was hitting him with his gold dust and just knocking him out.

“Well, that’s the time that I got up and went to my bathroom to go pee and change my stuff, which I’m going to be straightforward, I’m not even going to hide the words because I’m pretty sure you’ve heard it all. I have where I keep my tampons so my kids cannot find them, and my pads is in the cabinet that’s right behind my bathroom door. Not the first bathroom door, but where the toilet is, there’s a cabinet right behind the toilet door, and that’s where I keep them so they can’t find them.

“So I go in there, I grab me a maxi pad, which is the little thin ones. Usually, I don’t wear the thin ’cause I don’t like them. And I grab me a tampon and I go in the bathroom, and it literally takes me at least 1 minute to walk to my bathroom, get what I need, and get into the toilet and get all this down, get on the toilet, do my business, true enough, I pee, wipe, change everything out, and that takes me another about four to five minutes, which gets me in there and leaves me in there about 5, 6 minutes. Then I’ll walk back out, which is about a minute to walk back into the front, ’cause of course you’ve seen I had to walk around the door, the bed, and all that crap.

“So I walked back in there, and the front door is open. [Child] was gone, [child] was gone. I had ran down the hallway as I was walking up and said that they were gone, so that there told me, okay, the door’s open, they’re gone. So I ran up there, and I realized she was telling the truth. I just went to the restroom, where’s everybody at? Out there just coming to collect. ‘Okay baby, you’re the oldest, I asked you to keep an eye on when I went to the bathroom, why are they out there and you’re in here?’ He didn’t even answer. So I ran out the door and they ran over to me.”

“Where were they at?”

“They were at the neighbor’s at that little koi pond, because he said they can come over and watch them feed them. Which, you know, I don’t have a problem with them watching them feed them, but at least let me know that they’re going to watch the gentleman feed them ’cause he won’t let them get close to it. And they didn’t let me know where they went, so I ran out the door and they were over there.”

“Well, by what time was this you think?”

“It was about… honestly, I didn’t even look at the clock, but on my phone, because I always have my phone on me because my husband calls… all I can do is give you a guesstimated time, which is probably anywhere between 5:10 and 5:20 this evening.”

“Did y’all start watching the movie, you said it was 4:20?”

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Anyway, they got into the house, and it’s like, I left Alana in the living room. And it’s like, okay, I never leave her in the living room, I always take her with me or have she always follows me everywhere I go. She apparently went out with them. Well, I thought she had…”

“Let’s back up for a second. I just want to make sure I’m keeping track here. After you get done in the bathroom and you walk back up front, who’s up there laying on the floor watching TV, and little bit’s gone, which front door’s open?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay.”

“Alana, she usually goes and hides and lays down and goes to sleep. She’ll pass out beside the couch, she’ll go behind the table in the living room and pass out on the floor. She’ll, excuse me, she’ll go and she’ll curl up in the boys’ closet, go to sleep. She’ll climb up bed and go to sleep. She’ll find someplace comfortable to go to sleep if she gets tired. That’s where I thought she was. I ran through my whole house searching for her. I ran outside, I was looking for… I looked out the back, they can go in the backyard ’cause it’s fully fenced, she wasn’t there. I looked everywhere.

“My neighbor came out of his pond. I grabbed her as soon as I seen her, and the only thing that I thought was I seen images of people off of ER on TV when I was a little girl trying to do CPR or doing CPR, and I tried. She still wouldn’t move, she wouldn’t breathe. I tried to save her, but she wasn’t coming back through. Neighbors made up, they tried helping me, and they got the other kids in the house so they wouldn’t be out there being frantic, and then some of the neighbors called 911 for me before I can try to keep doing CPR.”

“Okay, now [child] is in the house, and house so… or outside?”

“Yes, sir. You walk outside and see…”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you called them back to you?”

“Yes, sir. And they came back and they went inside. Okay, they came back to you and they went inside, and then they didn’t say nothing about the baby being out there or nothing, ’cause usually they say Alana is outside. And after I done searched the whole house, I said, ‘Guys, where’s the baby?'”

“Did you ask them to help you?”

“Yeah, the kids were running through the neighborhood helping me and everything else. And then after I done searched across the street in little dirt pile over there, and in the little woods and trees over there, and in the backyard, and behind the fenced-on area in the backyard… finally tells me that there was a baby doll in the pond. And it’s like, they don’t have baby dolls. So I go over there and look, and I didn’t see anything. He came, the fella that lives there came outside and reached up underneath the bridge that he has there… pulls her out.”

*(That’s actually crazy if you think about it. Alana walked out of the front door, there happened to be an area where there was a bit of water, you know, the size of a pond, and she drowned. She was 1 year old. What are the chances of that happening? RIP.)*

“And you’re outside at the neighbor’s house when this happens?”

“And I was on the phone with my dad, Jeff, but he pulled her…”

“When did you originally call him to begin with?”

“When I seen her she wasn’t in the house. I called him to come over and try to help me find her because Alana never, ever, ever leaves my side. Never. Either I have her in my arms, she’s in her walker following me around the house, but she just learned how to walk, and fortunately she’s getting around pretty good. I mean, she doesn’t… oh, she’s been walking since she’s been like literally 11 months, and she’s trying to run her little fat stubby legs just to get up and go too. Bless her heart, she was doing so good. She was walking beautifully. She was just starting to say mommy real good. And I was actually just fixing to start potty training her ’cause she was walking really good, so that meant she could walk to the potty.

“And so when I was on the phone with my dad, I said, ‘Look, I can’t find the baby. The baby’s missing. I can’t find her. I can’t. I’ve looked in the house, I’ve looked in the backyard, I can’t find her. The kids are even helping try to look. Well, I’ve looked everywhere, everywhere. I even went to the neighbors’ houses, and in case they seen, you know, sister and brother inside their homes… she’s not in there. She’s nowhere to be found.’

“And then he comes over there and he pulls her out of his little… I call it a Japanese Koi, ’cause that’s what the fish look like. Man-made Japanese Koi pond tank, whatever you want to call it. Pulls her out, places her on the bridge. I go over and I snatch her and I put her on the ground.”

“What’s on the bridge?”

“It’s just a little man-made small man-made bridge that goes over the little pond, and it had like a little garden room or something on it, but I mean there’s still room on the bridge to move around and walk or, you know… which you don’t walk on it ’cause it’s just for sight, it’s just to look. And he places her on the bridge. I go over there and I grab her and I try, I beat on her back, I bounce her, I lay her on the ground. I don’t know what I’m doing on CPR. The only thing that I thought was I had to move the tongue and open the airway. I put my hand in her mouth and I pull her tongue down and forward, pinch the nose and I breathe, and I started pushing her chest. Gunk comes out of her nose. At the time she was probably already gone, but I still wanted to try. I didn’t know. She’s my baby. I conceived her in Hawaii to be honest, that’s where Alana came from. Hawaii. I don’t know what else I could have done.”

“I heard one of the kids earlier say that they have a play door they can go out of. Do you label or name the doors?”

“The back door. The back door, it’s fenced in, and they know that all the doors, you know, all the gate doors, which is there’s a double one over here to where you can drive into the backyard, and there’s a small one over here where you can walk through it with a lawnmower or a garbage can or just walk through it. And all of them are closed at all times. So they know that they can go out in the backyard and play as long as they don’t mess with the grill, which is under the little canopy thing back there, and they play nice. And that’s the play door.”

“Okay. And they go out the back door. Have you had any problems with them opening or going out the front door without you knowing about it?”

“Only a couple of times. And that’s, see, one time was when I was in the bathroom like today, and then another time was I think I was giving Alana a bath and I went outside to the neighbor’s house… they went, they were out back.”

“How long was that?”

“Um, we’ve been at this place for four months. It was like the second month that we were there that they first did it, and then it was like last month they did it twice.”

“Now what type of discipline do you utilize in the house for minor…”

“They get on the wall.”

“What do you mean, get on the wall?”

“They stand on the wall like this far away from it, so their nose ain’t touching it to where it won’t make them go cross-eyed. They have their hands behind their back.”

“They’re just standing up facing the wall?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay. And they have their hands behind the back to where they can’t be playing with the wall and all that stuff, and they stand there for anywhere between 3 to 5 minutes. Sometimes it’s a little bit longer because they want to stand there and they want to talk and dance. But that’s minor.”

“Um, what would be something minor that would get them there?”

“Throwing stuff, like a shoe or a ball, which I don’t have any balls in the house anymore. They used to have little balls in the house like, uh, the little $1.50 balls you find at Walmart, little bitty balls. They would have those inside and I told them no more balls in the house. Or if they start fighting, they would kick each other or hit each other. That’s wall time. If they start fighting to the point where it’s an all-out brawl, like I mean inmate type fight, I mean punching back and forth fist in the face…”

“And who’s doing that?”

“They do it. I mean, they fight pretty harsh when they get mad. They get us for anywhere between 3 to 5 minutes. But the wood that you seen outside is like a little man-made paddle and I give them one lick, 5 seconds they know I’m in business, they get on the wall for that. Now if they start fighting and throwing and running out the doors when they know they’re not supposed to, they go to their room for an hour. If they persist on doing it, they stay in their room for the rest of the day.”

“Now has any of the neighbors talked to you or voiced any concerns about the kids out…”

“No, I haven’t had any of the neighbors come up and even say ‘Hey, welcome to the neighborhood,’ you know, nothing.”

“Now how often are they in the front yard playing?”

“I don’t allow them in the front yard to play, but I mean…”

“You allow them to go… you do allow them outside though, because they go and watch the feeding of the koi, right?”

“But I watch them walk over there when they go over there.”

“So how often does that happen?”

“Not too often. They’ve only been over there like literally twice to watch him feed his fish. Just twice. And today when, like I said, I was in the restroom, I came out and they were over there, I ran outside and they were over there. So they snuck over there today. And later I found my baby in this pond. Well, actually my neighbor pulled her out of the pond, but I mean I found her there when he pulled her out. I should have had her with me. I should have picked her up and literally took her to the bathroom with me.”

“Now looking at the house, you know, in the bedrooms, one of the things that I noticed immediately that none of the beds in the house, including your room, had any sheets on the bed.”

“The kids’ mattresses… we actually just recently got a mattress for the boys’ beds and they don’t like sleeping in their beds. The reason you see blankets and everything in my floor, it’s because they bring their blankets in there and they crash in my floor whether I tell them to get in their beds or not. They bring all of their fitted sheets and all their blankets in my room and they crash in my floor. The boys crash on one part of the floor and the girls usually bring the blankets in there, but they crawl up in the bed with me. Well, you didn’t have sheets on your bed… that’s ’cause I had took them off to wash them. It was in the laundry room to be washed, and 99% of the stuff that was in the laundry room the kids have put down in the hallway to try to soak up some of the water that they flooded the bathroom and got in the hallway.”

“Now you say that they’re sleeping in the room with you… there is literally, this is what I usually sleep in, but there’s literally trash all over your floor in your bedroom.”

“They eat their food on top of… they bring their snacks in there and they eat it and throw their paper there. I have tried to go through there and clean it up, but I had to get the front cleaned up before I can get the back cleaned up.”

“We’re not talking about just a little bit of stuff, Jennifer. In your bathroom alone, you got dirty diapers on the floor. You got poop on the floor. Just stepped on poop in your…”

“I haven’t seen the poop, but the dirty diaper was in the garbage can.”

“Well, between the garbage can that’s in where the toilet is by the sink… it’s, I mean it’s, I don’t even know how that got there. I mean, I always put it…”

“Get on the floor.”

“All I can say, if there was poop on the floor, most likely it was the other day he had diarrhea.”

“No, this was not diarrhea.”

“I don’t know, because I always, whenever they go to the restroom, I give them a little bit of privacy because you don’t want nobody standing over you while you’re taking a crap or taking a leak. I mean, I guess that… but we’re not talking about…”

“We’re talking about the floor in your bathroom. Right?”

“Well, the clothes that’s in there they took off for the past couple of days, they were fixing to go into the washer today.”

“And I understand there’s five kids and they all produce a lot of clothes, you know, daily, a lot.”

“Okay, but do you think your house is suitable?”

“No, I mean like I said, I’m out of cleaning supplies. The only thing that I actually do have is laundry detergent and I had all my laundry done before yesterday. The cleaning supplies, that’s one thing, that’s, you know, to mop the floor and maybe do the dishes, clean the stove. That’s got nothing to do with the filth of trash that’s between your room and bathroom. My bathroom and my bedroom was going to be clean today, like I was saying, you know, the kids wanted to watch their movie and when I got them in bed tonight, I was going to clean my room while they were asleep.”

“How long has your room been that way? That didn’t happen in a week. Them kids are surprising you…”

“Um, they’ve had crackers, they’ve had candy, which I got them Laffy Taffy candy. Um, they’ve had chips, they’ve had all kinds of stuff, and they bring it into my bedroom and they eat it, ’cause usually I have them come in my room and watch cartoons while I’m in my room.”

“Well, you know, the trash, the food trash is one thing. But there’s just trash. And then inside the playpen, there’s more food and trash.”

“I don’t know how the food and trash got in there, because I always have that clean for the baby.”

“Come on, I’m serious. The baby. How could you… the only thing that’s supposed to be in there is the blankets.”

“I agree, that’s what’s supposed to be in there, that I have laid out for the baby to lay on and one to cover up with at night. That’s all that I know that was in there.”

“When’s the last time you looked in there?”

“She was in there today, which I do know. However, one of the kids threw a bottle or something in there today. This food, I don’t know how the food got in there, because I don’t feed her in there. I feed the kids in the kitchen at the table or in the high chair.”

“Look, I understand… oh, let’s talk about the high chair. Who sits in there? Which kid?”

“Alana usually does.”

“When’s the last time you looked at that high chair? And I understand putting food on the high chair so the baby can eat off of it, and that, hey fine. That thing was filthy.”

“I clean it out at least twice a week, and that there is just the ramen noodles from yesterday.”

“You clean the high chair twice a week? Not the tray…”

“Oh, okay, the tray I clean every night. Every night. But the seat usually don’t get all that dirty unless she has ramen noodles or grits or rice. And you know, I clean the seat and the little foot thing down there, whatever you want to call it, footstool whatever, at least twice a week ’cause that’s when it gets icky. But the tray, it has two parts of the tray, and I wash both of those every night.”

“Jennifer, this is not in reference to the kids. This is not the first time that you’ve had issues. Correct?”

“It’s not.”

“And I’m sure that you’ve been talked to about these same issues before. Is that correct?”

“On some of the cases, yes, and I’ve always, always went through and I’ve scrubbed my house and I’ve got it to where…”

“But you can’t do it when you’re expecting somebody. Well, I mean, I understand having a house that’s lived in because you’re there and the kids are there and life is busy. A lived-in house is one thing. But a house that’s filthy with roaches, that you have kids, and you have feces on the floor, you’ve got food, there’s literally food stuck to the walls… you think that’s acceptable?”

“No.”

“That is beyond… beyond a lived-in house. That’s just filth, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I totally agree, and I mean, soap and water will not get it off. I have tried soap and water.”

“Your fingers will get the food off the wall. There’s cheese stuck to one of the doors, and that wasn’t just put there today.”

“I haven’t seen that.”

“That’s because your eyes aren’t open. Because you’re not looking. You probably blindly walk in your room and step over all that trash in your room every day. Why do you think we’re placing in foster homes tonight?”

“Because of Alana drowning at my house.”

“Alana drowning, I’ll be honest with you, is only a part of it. But the majority of it is because the filth of your house. And not only because of the filth, is because this is not your first time. Didn’t you just go to court?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What were you told?”

“I was told to keep my nose clean. And that’s what I was trying to do. I was told by the judge that I owe $1,554, take parenting classes, and don’t get in trouble with the law at all.”

“Well, this ain’t getting in trouble with the law. Well, it kind of is, but we’re talking about the quality of life and health of children. That’s what this is about.”

“Well, I mean, I have the living room clean and the kids’ rooms are clean, they just don’t have like…”

“Hell, there ain’t nothing in there. What do you mean?”

“I guess you can say they’re clean, there’s nothing in there.”

“Well, it was… the other day I had them clean them. They had… but they take everything out of their rooms and just throw it in your room then?”

“No, they had old papers they took in there and they looked through and they scattered them one piece at a time in different directions ’cause they would look at them and throw it. That’s just how they do.”

“There’s barely a toy in that house.”

“I know. I mean, you know, that’s not essential. You know, thankfully the lights are on, there’s some food in the fridge…”

“Those, that’s… yeah, I had to call my husband’s boss to get that. I had to call him to wire me a couple hundred dollars so I can get that.”

“Why are you having a problem… listen to my question for a second, okay? Why are you having a problem just maintaining a decent, acceptable level of cleanliness in the house and providing…”

“The providing is not really an issue. It’s the keeping the clean house. Like I said, I’m not that good of somebody to keep a clean house, and I think it’s a lot of depression because I’m overweight and a bunch of other stuff on me not being able to do too much. But there really is no excuse for it. There really is none. And I’m ashamed of it. And the only thing I can do is clean that sucker up and keep it clean from this day forward. No more issues with anybody. The house stays clean and it stays immaculately clean. Not just picked up clean, I mean there is no excuse for a nasty house. There shouldn’t be no nasty house whether you have kids or not. And I’m sorry it’s like that. There is no excuse. I’m not even going to BS you, there is no excuse. But I do fight being depressed because I am overweight.”

“And that’s not an excuse though. You know you have kids.”

“I do.”

“And not only do you have kids, you have kids that can’t take care of themselves, and they kind of look to you to do that. And if you can’t do that and you need help, you need to find a way to ask for help because they depend on you.”

“I don’t know anybody in this area to ask for help. I mean, I don’t have a phone book at home. I don’t know any numbers out here, and I can’t go just go search on the internet and find numbers. I don’t know anybody.”

“Department of Children and Families. You got all kinds of organizations. You got…”

“Excuse me… no sir, I’m being straightforward and honest with you.”

“I go every day…”

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s people there that can help. You don’t make an excuse. And that’s all you’re doing. That’s all you’re doing about why your house is filthy. You don’t even know there’s [ __ ] on the floor, and I mean that. And that’s completely unacceptable. It’s a hazard to your health, it’s a hazard to their health. Now, when they found out where that water was, anytime that they disappeared they did it without me knowing.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t just the water, it was them playing in the middle of the street as well.”

“That there… I was outside with them. I was outside with them, and when they moved off away from me, I called them back over to me and they came back over there. When they walked over there, they wasn’t over there all that long, maybe about five minutes, and I called them over. And I had to call them about three times, and I didn’t know how to get over in the area where they were. They have little creeks that they crawl under or something in the little privacy fence, and they got over there.”

“Jennifer, it can’t always be somebody else’s fault.”

“I was at my neighbor’s house…”

“Take responsibility.”

“I am taking responsibility. I shouldn’t have let them get away from me. It can’t be somebody else’s fault all the time.”

“It’s not somebody else’s fault, it’s my fault, and I take full responsibility of not 100% keeping my eyes on… I’m not saying it’s anybody else’s fault. I knew that’s going to be a challenge. They’re going to be sneaky, they’re going to be kids, and they’re going to put risks there that’s going to make me alert. I should have kept them in my sights 100% of the time.”

“Do you plan on taking them parenting classes?”

“Yes, sir. I would take as many as this state and any state has.”

“Take the ones that you’ve been ordered to take.”

“I actually had looked online earlier this morning before all this mess, and I’ve seen a place out here in Pensacola that does free court-ordered parenting classes, and I was going to give them a call. And I had to get my school done, and then I was going to give them a call, and then I was going to get all that going.”

“How are you paying for school?”

“I got a grant. I qualified for a grant from the taxes from my husband working.”

“I mentioned earlier that you know, why are you having so much trouble providing for the kids? You say you’re not…”

“That’s debatable. Well, providing for them, like I was going to tell you, we usually have a pantry full of food and a refrigerator bursting with food. We rarely have very little food in our home. When my husband came home the last time, his boss told him that he needs to go and take his engineering license test, that was mandatory or he was losing his job. He went out there, he took it. He had four different subjects to do. He passed one, failed three. So he has to retake those in order to get licensed.

“And he had to stay in a hotel room down there for 3 days ’cause the test took 3 days to do. He stayed down there for three days, and I think he said that the room was like $300 a day, so that’s $900 for three days. And then the test I think he said was about, I’m thinking anywhere between $150 and $400, somewhere in that bracket. So I mean he went up there with about two grand, and then he had to have the gas to get there and the gas to get back and money to eat on while he was there. So I mean, he made… things just got tight.

“Things just got tight, and like I said, I’m supposed to have it, he gets paid every first and 15th of the month. I’m supposed to have his check sometime next week ’cause the first is Sunday, I can have his check anywhere between Monday and Wednesday ’cause Monday is the second. I can have it anywhere between that. I was going to go up and get literally about $200, $250 of groceries so I have, pay cash for it. It’s not… you can’t get too much when you’re having to pay with cash, when you got a lot of bills and you have to get the cleaning supplies and toilet paper and all when you’re having to pay with cash, when you got a lot of bills and you have to get the cleaning supplies and toilet paper and all that so that we can wipe our hinies…”

“Um, you have a problem budgeting money.”

“Yes, I do. So does my husband. And I’ve been trying to figure out how I can take some kind of a study course to learn how to budget money better and, and, and do it. I mean, I have a massive problem budgeting money. My husband does too.”

“What are you doing with your money?”

“99% of the time, I pay my bills. I make sure my bills are paid first. I get… get a couple hundred dollars worth of food like my husband always tells me to. And then some of the times, I, you know, when I’m out paying the bills, I take the kids out to eat as a treat for being good when I have them all with me, and then I get them a toy or something.”

“Well, the toy thing is, they don’t have many toys, Jennifer. They don’t. So you don’t buy them toys?”

“I, I do. I honestly do, but those kids, they, they play with them so much and then they bang them around and they tear them up, so I have to throw them away. They actually recently had…”

“What about clothes? Their clothes… like I said, they just threw a lot of them away.”

“I understand that. I understand outgrowing clothes.”

“A lot of their clothes are in my dresser. I, you know, but believe me, they, they outgrow clothes all the time, quickly too, you know.”

“I understand that. They don’t have any.”

“I’ve got, got clothes in the dryer, I’ve got clothes in the washer, and I’ve got a lot of their clothes in my dresser ’cause I know if I put them in their bedroom, they’re going to be all over the floor. They’re going to take… what they do is they go in there looking for one item, and they take it, and they throw it across the floor.

“They are a little more hyperactive than most kids. And their pediatrician in Alabama put them on… that actually went to, um, the mental health over there for an appointment. He was diagnosed also with ODD. Um, I don’t remember what they said it was, but they just said that it causes him to stay angry for a long time when he gets angry. Um, but since I’ve been over here, they did have some when I first got over here and they were taking it, but I had ran out. And the Medicaid that they have, it runs out… um, it…”

“When did you get here?”

“Oh goodness, uh, four months ago.”

“What were the factors that led the DCF in Alabama to remove your children then?”

“Them going to the canal and, um, them being wet from their waist down because they would be sitting in the water, playing in the, in, in like this much water.”

“Okay, so from then to now, what have you done to safeguard? Because obviously, and this is what I’m getting at, obviously they go outside at will, and you always seem to catch them after the fact. Between Alabama, between now over here, there’s been several times where you end up spanking them for going out the door and stuff. Out the front door.”

“Out the front door.”

“What have you done to prevent that from happening?”

“Pretty much stay in the room with them, and if they go out in the back…”

“Well, obviously that’s not working. We know that, because you’re not staying in the room with them, because there’ll be another front door. So that’s… that’s a wash.”

“Well, I, I planned on getting one of those, um, like chain locks and putting it high on the door, mhm. ‘Cause you see where the deadbolt and the other lock is, the handle? I was going to put one of those little chain locks up top to where they couldn’t reach it when I got my husband’s money, ’cause I don’t have any money right now. But…”

“But this is not something that just started happening.”

“Well, the other place had it, but they, they figured out how to unlock it because it was not…”

“Is not. This, this hadn’t just started to happen. Would you agree with that?”

“Yes, sir, I 100% agree with that.”

“I mean, would you agree that keeping them safe is, is, is my number one priority? And, and you failed to do that.”

“And I should be doing better with it. And I mean, you know how they know how to unlock…”

“You failed to do that.”

“Yes, sir. They know how to unlock both of those locks. My first… I mean, I can’t put…”

“Do you get a hasp? You get a lock. You’re tall enough, and on the door you put it up here.”

“That’s where I planned on putting it. They get a step stool, they’re going to be able to reach it.”

“And when you mean a hasp, just one, one of the little… you know, they make several kinds, but kinds that pull over the door, they keep the lock. The chains, you know, I don’t do… You can even put one of the little slide things to keep the door from actually opening, you know, so that, so you can’t get a crack in the door. I wouldn’t put a chain on, that’s just… I, I would do a hasp or, or a little slide lock, sort of like the lock that my husband has on his. Even a deadbolt, you can put a deadbolt high on the door. So there’s several different options.”

“Well, I’ve been told not to put a deadbolt up there, um, because the ones my husband was talking about is a key to get in and get out.”

“You, you’ve got several options. The bottom line here is, should you have to do something safe because they’re randomly at will going outside?”

“Yes, sir.”

So to conclude on this case, in 2014, Jennifer Island was sentenced to 24 years in prison. Now that you know the full story about how the way she mistreated the household, how she did abuse her children, and the definition of laziness in my opinion… is 24 years the correct verdict? Comment, tell me what you think.