Mom left 3 kids home alone for days while she went to Florida for friend’s liposuction surgery, police say

WESTLAKE, Ohio (WOIO/Gray News) – An Ohio mother could face jail time after police discovered she left her children home alone for nearly three days while she went to Florida.

A judge ruled that Domonique Knowles, 32, endangered her children when she left them home alone without a phone.

According to police, the mother rarely checked on them, using FaceTime on a laptop and monitoring them from home security cameras.

Police said Knowles left her 10-year-old son in the care of her two 7-year-old twin sisters with special needs.

Officials said Knowles took her 8-month-old son with her to Florida, but left her three children alone at home.

Police credited the 10-year-old’s fourth-grade teacher with bringing the matter to light.

“(The 10-year-old girl) informed her teacher that last night she spoke to the mother on camera and that the mother ordered them Uber Eats and left it at the door,” the teacher said in a phone call to the police. asking officers to conduct a welfare check on the home.

When officers arrived, police said the apartment was dirty with liquid spilled all over the floor. While the officers were there, one of the twins slipped and fell.

Prosecutor Michael Maloney said he was horrified when he received the case.

“Mom wasn’t really checking in… telecommuting is one thing; the remote mother is another. But the mom didn’t even register,” Maloney said. “The girls made it clear.”

Police eventually located the children’s grandmother. Maloney said Knowles never told her mother she was leaving the children alone and leaving the state.

“It was worse,” Maloney said. “The mother lied to her mother. There were adults who were available to help.”

Knowles initially denied leaving Ohio, but police were able to prove he spent two nights in Miami.

“She lied,” Maloney said. “They showed her leaving Hopkins airport on the evening in question, they timed the calls showing the mother at an airport in Miami within a period of approximately two hours, which of course is the flight time of Cleveland to Miami, and when the mom was confronted about it, she changed her story and said something about having to be in Miami because her friend needed liposuction surgery.”

Police arrested Knowles and charged her with child endangerment.

“My kids can be here by themselves,” Knowles told police in body camera video.

“Not when you have two children with special needs,” replied the arresting officer.

Maloney also said a patio door was open to the home.

“All the teachers and counselors at the school said there’s no doubt these girls would have gotten away with it given the chance, and I don’t want to go into the things that could have happened then: a kidnapping, getting behind a car “.

Knowles was found guilty of child endangerment earlier this month. She will be sentenced on Wednesday and could face up to six months in prison.

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