GetSmart
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I did a search and this did not pop up... I was sure we would have posted this ..
This is so wrong ...
http://www.tampabay.com/news/public...rves-in-walking-distance-of-a-grocery/1049449
LAKELAND — The pantry and refrigerator were full of juice, pasta, snacks and canned food — plenty to fill the bellies of the two adults and five children who lived in the house on Sunshine Drive.
But not enough for the baby.
Only 2 ounces of formula were found Monday in the home where paramedics pronounced an emaciated 5-month-old girl dead. She weighed just 6 pounds.
Chauntasia Gardner starved to death in a house with more beer than infant formula, investigators said, and the Polk County Sheriff's Office blames the parents. Tivasha E. Logan, 25, and her boyfriend Chauncey Gardner, 27, were charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse.
"It is mind-boggling," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said. "I've done this job my entire adult life, and I've seen a lot of violence against children and babies, but I can't ever remember seeing one starve to death. This child was tortured for days on end until she finally died from starvation."
This wasn't a famine-plagued region. There was no water shortage or crop failure. This was Lakeland.
The family lived a mile from the nearest grocery store and in walking distance of two churches. Logan had Medicaid and received Social Security Income and food stamps. She also participated in the county's Women, Infants & Children program, which provides some formula.
Investigators even found a $674 Social Security check that Logan received on Nov. 1 specifically for the infant.Why was this child getting Soc security?
Still, Logan watered down the formula at a 3-1 ratio, not 1-1 as the label instructed, the arrest report states. She told deputies that she never read the label; she said Gardner told her 3-1 was correct.
"It's absolutely appalling," Polk County Commissioner Ed Smith said. "It's unbelievable that anybody would starve a child to death. Your own flesh and blood, it's just unbelievable."
Paramedics went to the house at 2710 Sunshine Drive N in response to a call about a child who was not breathing. When deputies arrived, she was laying on the floor, her ribs and spine visible, her eyes sunken and her skin loose and wrinkled.
Judd said the parents were in denial and couldn't see what they had done wrong. They haven't offered an explanation, he said.
Logan and Gardner never took Chauntasia to the doctor, the arrest report said. The baby was born prematurely on May 11 but released on July 29 at a healthy weight of 7 pounds and 8 ounces.
Three months later, she didn't weigh even that much.
When told the baby's weight, a Tampa pediatrician gasped.
"Oh, my God, 6 pounds?" said Dr. Christina Paulson. "Six pounds would be way, way, way below the third percentile," she said as she looked at a chart. "It's not even on the curve.... If that baby came into the office, we'd have sent them to the hospital."
The average weight for a 5-month-old is about 14 pounds, she said.
Logan told detectives that she tried several times to get an appointment with a doctor but couldn't because none would accept her Medicaid.
However, her mother, Vonda Stewart, told investigators that she confronted Logan two weeks ago and urged her to take the baby to the doctor because of weight loss. Logan told her mom that she had gone to a doctor and that Chauntasia weighed 8 pounds.
This is so wrong ...
http://www.tampabay.com/news/public...rves-in-walking-distance-of-a-grocery/1049449
LAKELAND — The pantry and refrigerator were full of juice, pasta, snacks and canned food — plenty to fill the bellies of the two adults and five children who lived in the house on Sunshine Drive.
But not enough for the baby.
Only 2 ounces of formula were found Monday in the home where paramedics pronounced an emaciated 5-month-old girl dead. She weighed just 6 pounds.
Chauntasia Gardner starved to death in a house with more beer than infant formula, investigators said, and the Polk County Sheriff's Office blames the parents. Tivasha E. Logan, 25, and her boyfriend Chauncey Gardner, 27, were charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse.
"It is mind-boggling," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said. "I've done this job my entire adult life, and I've seen a lot of violence against children and babies, but I can't ever remember seeing one starve to death. This child was tortured for days on end until she finally died from starvation."
This wasn't a famine-plagued region. There was no water shortage or crop failure. This was Lakeland.
The family lived a mile from the nearest grocery store and in walking distance of two churches. Logan had Medicaid and received Social Security Income and food stamps. She also participated in the county's Women, Infants & Children program, which provides some formula.
Investigators even found a $674 Social Security check that Logan received on Nov. 1 specifically for the infant.Why was this child getting Soc security?
Still, Logan watered down the formula at a 3-1 ratio, not 1-1 as the label instructed, the arrest report states. She told deputies that she never read the label; she said Gardner told her 3-1 was correct.
"It's absolutely appalling," Polk County Commissioner Ed Smith said. "It's unbelievable that anybody would starve a child to death. Your own flesh and blood, it's just unbelievable."
Paramedics went to the house at 2710 Sunshine Drive N in response to a call about a child who was not breathing. When deputies arrived, she was laying on the floor, her ribs and spine visible, her eyes sunken and her skin loose and wrinkled.
Judd said the parents were in denial and couldn't see what they had done wrong. They haven't offered an explanation, he said.
Logan and Gardner never took Chauntasia to the doctor, the arrest report said. The baby was born prematurely on May 11 but released on July 29 at a healthy weight of 7 pounds and 8 ounces.
Three months later, she didn't weigh even that much.
When told the baby's weight, a Tampa pediatrician gasped.
"Oh, my God, 6 pounds?" said Dr. Christina Paulson. "Six pounds would be way, way, way below the third percentile," she said as she looked at a chart. "It's not even on the curve.... If that baby came into the office, we'd have sent them to the hospital."
The average weight for a 5-month-old is about 14 pounds, she said.
Logan told detectives that she tried several times to get an appointment with a doctor but couldn't because none would accept her Medicaid.
However, her mother, Vonda Stewart, told investigators that she confronted Logan two weeks ago and urged her to take the baby to the doctor because of weight loss. Logan told her mom that she had gone to a doctor and that Chauntasia weighed 8 pounds.