April 14, 2020

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) -- A Richmond County deputy checking on the welfare of a 6-year-old found her asleep with a bug creeping on her face in a home soiled with dog waste and crawling with cockroaches, according to the officer.

The girl was removed from the home and three adults were arrested, according to authorities.

The discovery was made after the officer was sent just after 2 a.m. Saturday to a home in the 3000 block of Blanchard Road to check on the girl’s welfare after authorities received a complaint from someone who did not wish to be identified, according to the officer’s report.

As the officer went to the door, he spoke with a man who said he lived at the home.

The officer wrote that once inside, “the smell of dog feces, urine and something rotten took my breath away.”

The officer wrote that dog feces was “smashed into the carpet” of three bedrooms.

In one of the bedrooms, “I flashed my light around the room and I could see roaches crawling on the floor and all over the feces,” the officer wrote.

In the bedroom the officer was told was the girl’s, the officer said he counted 10 piles of dry feces and five fresher ones.

“I observed the closet and it had clothes just thrown in and on the floor piled up about halfway to the ceiling,” the officer wrote.

The officer wrote that the girl was asleep on a recliner in the living room.

“As I looked more closely at her … a roach crawled across her face,” wrote the officer, who then stepped outside and notified dispatchers to get him in touch with a child welfare social worker.

After the social worker arrived, the officer continued to look at the rest of the house.

In the dining room, the officer wrote, “I observed that there were open beer bottles with mold in the bottles on the dining table with clothes piled on top and under the table. I observed roaches crawling up and down the wall eating what looked to be old food that was slung against wall.”

In the kitchen, the officer wrote that there was an “open flame coming from one of the gas stove burners. In the middle of the two front burners there was a large pile of put out cigarette butts … as though the stove was being used as a large ashtray with its own constant lighter.”

In the refrigerator, the officer wrote that he found “rotten food and roaches crawling across bags of what I assumed to be bags of food,” along with caked food and liquids.

“The roaches in the fridge were dead and living, the dead ones were smashed in the seam of the fridge door. The living ones would crawl back and forth,” he wrote, trying to escape the light.

“The sink was no better than the rest of the house as it had large mold deposits and the cabinets to the sink were broken and irreparable. The place where the washing machine and the dryer were had clothes piled on top of them with dried food and feces stuck to the front of both machines,” he wrote.

The 57-year-old man who lived in the home, a 43 year old woman who lived there and the girl’s 26-year-old mother were arrested on suspicion of contributing to the deprivation of a minor, according to the officer’s report.

The girl was taken into state custody and arrangements were made for four dogs in the home to be picked up by animal-control staff, according to the officer’s report.