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| John Haley |
DELTONA, Florida -- When a 6-year-old boy
came knocking on a neighbor’s door shortly after 2 a.m. Sunday morning
complaining about being cold and hungry, it was obvious to the neighbor that something was
wrong.
The boy then proceeded to tell the neighbor that he was allegedly locked out of
his house and had been forced to sleep on the patio as a punishment. Concerned
for the boy’s welfare, the neighbor gave the child a blanket and potato
chips and called the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office for help. The call
set off a criminal investigation that resulted in a Deltona couple being
arrested for felony child neglect.
When deputies arrived at
the scene, they say the boy told them that he had been forced to sleep on the back porch
for three days. He also told deputies that he’s fed rice for lunch and dinner
every day, and when there’s no rice, he’s given lettuce to eat. He
also said that when he’s not put out on the porch, he’s often
locked in the garage like a virtual prisoner and only let in the house a couple
of times a day to use the bathroom.
The neighbor said during call to police that he’s not sure if
everything the boy was saying was the truth. “I don’t know if what
everything he’s saying is true,” the man told a Sheriff’s
Office dispatcher. “I just know from my point of view, something is not
right here.” The dispatcher reassured the man several times, telling him:
“You definitely did the right thing.”
One of the responding
deputies noted that there was no bed or bedroom furniture of any kind on the
screened-in porch. The deputy, she wrote in her report, “did not see a
location where a child could sleep comfortably in 50 degree temperature.”
Deputies then went to the child’s house to ask the defendants,
47-year-old John Haley and his 41-year-old wife, Stephanie Haley, if they knew
where the boy was. At first, officials say the couple claimed that he should be asleep in one
of the bedrooms. When deputies informed them that he was at a neighbor’s
house cold and hungry and complaining about being forced to sleep on the porch,
John Haley initially acted shocked at the news. But deputies say that he later admitted that he
and his wife make the boy sleep on the porch as punishment for stealing and
eating too much. And he added that neither of them thought that the punishment
was in any way neglectful.
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| Stephanie Haley |