A homeless couple in Carroll County, Georgia, has been arrested on charges of first-degree child cruelty and reportedly faces between 5 to 20 years if found guilty. The story has caused grave concern within the community after details emerged that they had abandoned three toddlers at a campsite for days, leaving them to starve, covered in feces, and, in one case, suffering brain damage.
According to WKRC, Jason Askea, 46, and Kira Askea, 41, had been residing at the campground in Little Tallapoosa Park with their children. The oldest is 5, the middle 4, and the youngest 2, who reportedly has Down syndrome. Children with special needs tend to require more attention and care, and in situations where they’re neglected, death is sadly not uncommon. As such, Jason and Kira’s 2-year-old required an oxygen and feeding tube to aid in his brain development. Sadly, when they abandoned the child, they cut the tube off, and the child now has brain damage.
Jason and Kira’s motivations for this act are still unclear. But we’ve seen it all — from parents who dump their newborns under trees only to come back and shoot them, to parents who decide to pull a Home Alone on their child and move out while he’s still at school without telling him where they’ve gone. The questions surrounding this callous act remain, but the police immediately arrested the couple, and they were denied bail. The children are now thankfully in the custody of Georgia’s Department of Family and Children Services.
Further investigations revealed that Jason and Kira’s 2-year-old had also previously suffered multiple seizures that went both unreported and untreated. Furthermore, all of the children had gone through dental neglect. The situation could not be more dire. Allen Babcock, West Georgia’s Child Advocacy Center Executive Director, revealed that one of the most important things that happened in this particular case is that someone actually reported the situation.
Reportedly, a camper came upon the children abandoned in a tent with no supervision and immediately called the police to report what they had just seen. And it’s for that reason alone that Jason and Kira are now facing charges. Babcock shared that in any given year, they have to contend with hundreds of cases of alleged negligence, and they alone cannot be aware of every case happening in the state. He encouraged people to always report whenever they see something happening to children that seems like negligence or abuse.
Babcock’s plea is not uncommon. “See something, say something” is one of the most important cruxes of living in a community. Some of us will always stray from our responsibilities — that’s the unfortunate reality of life — but that should never happen without consequence. Nothing ever happens in a vacuum.
As for Jason and Kira, there seems to be irrefutable evidence that will prove to the court that they are indeed irresponsible parents. The children will need more than just kindness and love to recover from this ordeal. This will probably play a role in how they see the world for a long time, which just goes to show how people’s childhoods can sometimes be full of unimaginable trauma — and whenever we meet people who need assistance, we need to remember that something as simple as caring parents was never a guarantee for all of us.
