Police: Toddler found in snow while mother inside house with drugs

A mother is facing charges after her 22-month-old son was found early Sunday morning outside a home in Jeannette while it was snowing and 34 degrees, police said.

A witness told officers the child was on the front porch of a home in wet clothes shivering and trying to get back inside the house.

“(The) baby is crying continuously. I don't know if the baby was on the porch or up through the window, (but) I could hear it. He was crying continuously,” neighbor Edward Czerpak said.

Czerpak told WPXI that he heard the crying and was going to call 911, but by that time, someone else had already called.

“It woke me up about 12:30, and I've been staying up since about 2:30. And I watched the ambulance come and police out here,” Czerpak said.

A woman leaving a relative’s house nearby found the boy and took him back to the house she was visiting to warm up. Authorities said it’s unclear how long the child was outside on the porch.

When police questioned the boy’s mother, identified as Trisha Sperry, she allegedly told officers she was cleaning up spilled yogurt in the kitchen. However, authorities said the spill had been there for some time.

"Once in a while I see her, but I don't bother them over there. They don't bother us,” Czerpak said.

Sperry was taken away in handcuffs and charged with endangering the welfare of children.

Police said after searching her purse, they found various pills, crack cocaine, marijuana and heroin.

The child’s grandmother told WPXI that she came and got him. He was taken to a hospital with a fever, but is said to be doing OK.

The grandmother said Sperry loves her son and that she works hard and is a great mother. She said she believes this incident was an accident.