A 37-year-old woman has been arrested for child cruelty after allegedly leaving six young siblings to fend for themselves, according to Georgia police.
Douglasville police said they found the kids, who ranged in age from 1 to 10 years old, unsupervised at the home on James D. Simpson Avenue on March 29.
‘I thought everything was OK, but I just know she’s never home, she’s never there, and it’s just sad.’
The oldest child told police they were forced to eat cockroaches and ants. Police believed they were left alone for about 12 hours.
Arrest warrants state that police found the home to be lacking “adequate food or suitable living conditions,” and they reported a “strong, foul odor consistent with unsanitary living conditions.”
Sherry Diane Magby was arrested on Thursday and charged with six counts of child cruelty in the second degree. She was taken into custody at the Douglas County Jail.
Police have not disclosed the woman’s relationship to the children.
One of the children died, but police did not release information about the circumstances of the child’s death.
WXIA-TV said court records indicated that Magby had been previously arrested for allegedly cutting her son by throwing a pocketknife at him. She faced a child cruelty charge in that incident as well.
Neighbors in the area told WXIA that they had expressed concern about the lack of supervision over the children.
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“I thought everything was OK, but I just know she’s never home, she’s never there, and it’s just sad, sad,” said one neighbor, who didn’t want to be identified.
“One time, I told my husband we might need to do a welfare check because he came home like 12 o’clock one night, and the kids was outside playing. She wasn’t there,” another neighbor said to WAGA-TV.
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