Officers were dispatched around 8 p.m. Tuesday to the 1600 block of Broadway Avenue to check the welfare of several children that were home alone, according to an affidavit filed in the case.
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When police arrived, they spoke with a neighbor who said she saw children inside the home alone. Police also saw the children in the windows, but were unable to make contact with them or anyone else inside the house.
The neighbor then told officers the children’s grandfather lives in the other side of the duplex, the affidavit says. Officers attempted to knock on the grandfather’s door for roughly seven minutes before he answered.
“Officers were informed that his (the grandfather’s) daughter had left the children at home and was at Wal-Mart on North Bechtle Avenue,” the affidavit says. “Ms. Vaughn stated that she thought the children were asleep so she just left for a little while to go to the store.”
When Vaughn arrived to her house about 30 minutes later, officers went inside the home to check the living conditions, the affidavit says. Once inside, “officers observed a residence that was in deplorable condition.”
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According to the affidavit, police saw trash on the floor, tons of clothes piled throughout the home, prescription medicine laying in reach of the children, beds on the floor and not enough beds for each child, no running water in the upstairs bathroom, backed up sewage that comes through the drains, no liter box for a cat, mounds of more laundry piled in an upstairs bedroom, and loose food items inside a dirty refrigerator and freezer, the affidavit says.
Vaughn was arrested Tuesday night and charged with five counts of child endangering.
Her next court date will be set at a later time.
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