A St. Louis woman was charged with child abuse, kidnapping, and child endangerment after her son and daughter, ages 3 and 5, were found locked inslide dark closets in her apartment.
Her boyfriend said she was a good mother.
KMOV
Monique Winston told authorities she only locked her children up – “every other, three days.”
StlToday.com reported:
A St. Louis woman faces multiple charges after police discovered her daughter, 5, and son, 3, locked inside dark closets in her apartment and showing signs of ringworm and malnourishment.
Monique Winston, 27, of the 4600 block of South Spring Avenue in the city’s Dutchtown neighborhood, was charged Friday with two counts of kidnapping, four counts of child abuse, and two counts of child endangerment.
The incident happened Wednesday. Police got a call to Winston’s apartment to check out a report of children left unattended. They arrived at about 3:30 p.m. and heard screaming from inside. The officers went inside and found the children shut inside two separate closets. A neighbor said she saw Winston and her boyfriend leave the apartment at about 9 a.m. that day.
Both children were “extremely thin,” court documents say. The girl showed signs she had not been bathed regularly and the boy weighed less than the 5th percentile for a child his age.
Winston told police she put the children in the closets that day and that she put them in the closets “every other, three days,” when asked how often she did so.