EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. -- A mother from East St. Louis, Ill., is facing five counts of child endangerment. Officers said she left her four girls, ages 1 to 14, abandoned and hungry in a motel room for days. They said she left to do drugs.
"An anonymous caller was worried about four children, and said the children were eating out of the trash and drinking water out of the faucet," said Caseyville (Ill.) Police Sgt Gerard Spratt.
He was the first officer on the scene. He said he walked into a dirty, smelly hotel room.
"The kids didn't have diapers, they were walking around and going when they had to. That's all the clothes they own," he said.
It was one of the saddest scenes he'd seen, he said. The children didn't know how to get hold of their mother.
Detective Sgt Scott Miller hit the pavement and got on the phone to find Crethia Southworth.
"The mom told me she ran into a friend, they started drinking and led into drug use for 2.5 days," said Miller.
He said Southworth told him she knew what she'd done was wrong.
"She's had a drug problem for a while, this isn't the first time she left her kids for a crack cocaine addiction," he said.
Miller said Southworth would often leave her children with a sister or a friend. This time, she left them in a motel. He said Southworth's 17-year-old boyfriend would check on the children in the motel, but he'd run out of money for food.
Sgt. Spratt bought the children McDonald's Happy Meals when he saw them. He paid for them out of his own pocket.
The children were delivered to the Department of Children and Families and went to stay with their aunt.
"Not knowing where you are going to live, what you are going to eat -- those kids had to experience that for months," Miller said.
Spratt said the Motel 6 staff had no idea the children were in the hotel room because their mother had paid for a week. That means housekeepers weren't going into that room.
Southworth is in jail on $10,000 bond.
