A phone call about two young children – including one wearing a soiled, sagging diaper – running through a Palm Bay mobile home park hungry and alone led to the arrests of the caregivers and the toddlers being taken away by the state, reports show.

The blonde-haired girls were so hungry, Palm Bay police reported, that they munched on grass and flowers pulled up from the dirt.

Corey Lee Rickards, 25, and Joanne Marie Hall, 77, were charged with child neglect after Palm Bay police were called Saturday to investigate reports of two young children running throughout Holiday Park. Police did not immediately elaborate on the pair's relationship to the children. Both were booked into the Brevard County Jail on Mother's Day and each ordered held on a $10,000 bond, records show.

The caller told police that one of the unidentified children was covered with bug bites, thirsty and in need of a bath along with changing out of the waste-caked diaper she was wearing, reports show.

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Police – who spotted the children trying to eat grass and sticks - questioned the children and contacted the Department of Children and Families. One officer changed the diaper of one toddler after Hall, noted to have a large abscess on her arm, refused, reports show.

Officers – who purchased food from McDonald’s for the children - searched through the property, including a backyard shed with a small bedroom. Hall told officers that she fed the children a peanut butter and jelly sandwich earlier in the day.

The girls also were emanating a foul odor and were dirty, reports show. Rickards, who arrived a short time later, told police that neighbors had complained about the girls running around the mobile home park naked.

Hall also told the officers that the neighbors should have ‘minded their business,’ reports show.

Officers found trash, dirty clothing, spoiled food crumbs, and fecal matter smeared along the walls, reports show.

Both Hall and Rickards were arrested and taken to the Brevard County Jail Complex. The children were turned over to the state.

No court dates have been set.

Contact Gallop at 321-242-3642, jdgallop@floridatoday.com and Twitter @JDGallop