A neighbor called it a simple misunderstanding, police said otherwise after finding a three year old girl walking around an apartment complex alone.
"Since I wasn't working at the time I told her I'd volunteer to help her babysit," neighbor Keith Graves said.
Graves had been babysitting Shauna Bennett's three year old a lot over the last two weeks.
"Shauna is a good person, so I was just helping a friend out."
Which is why he says it was a big misunderstanding when police showed up on Saturday, to investigate why the child was reportedly wandering the Corte Vista Apartments.
"[She] is very rambunctious and has a lot of energy and she knows how to get out of the apartment- so she got out of the apartment and did what a three year old does, play around," Graves said.
Police reported a different story.
"This was a clear neglect on the mother's part," LPD Lt. Ray Mendoza said.
The police report indicated, the child was "extremely dirty" and looked as though she hadn't been bathed for a while. The child reportedly was covered with red bumps, bed bug bites.
"A kid is going to play outside, not have shoes on and so forth, so a child being not clean, that's just natural," Graves said.
The report stated, the door to the unit where the child lived was ajar and after knocking and calling Bennett's name without any response, the officer went inside.
"More than anything it was the conditions the child was living under and the fact that the mom was completely oblivious to where the child had been or where it was at the time," Lt. Mendoza said.
The report described the apartment as filthy, with cockroaches climbing the walls. It stated that the kitchen, covered with dirty and moldy dishes, was in no way sanitary or functional.
"It could have been cleaned a little bit better, but Shauna was doing the best that she could under the circumstances that she was in," Graves said.
Bennett, 42, was reportedly asleep. When she awakened, the report stated that she had no idea where the child was.
"They know that I babysit, they could have just brought the child to me and I would have held on to [her] until Shauna either woke up or I would have went down to Shauna's apartment and knocked on the door until she woke up," Graves said.
This wasn't the first time. The owner of the Corte Vista Apartments reportedly found the child wandering the complex before and two weeks ago confronted Bennett about a noise complaint. He said he noticed the unsanitary conditions and told Bennett to keep the place in better shape.
"Everyone makes mistakes and to judge Shauna for her mistakes and not look at the mistakes that we all make, that's hypocritical," Graves said.
The police report noted that the three year old continually complained of hunger and at one point said, "I need a beer."
Bennett is in jail on $15,000 bond. She's been charged with abandoning and endangering a child.
