ORLANDO, Fla. _ A Florida woman was arrested after a second grader in her care repeatedly showed up to school in clothes caked in filth and a backpack filled with "hundreds" of bugs, deputies in the Panhandle said.
The girl is one of five siblings ages 5 to 14 who lived in a "filthy" Milton home infested with roaches, soiled mattresses on the floor, piles of cat feces, no edible food, broken windows, and bags of trash throughout the home and yard, according to a Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office report.
Jessica Nicole Stevenson, 33, was arrested last Friday and charged with five felony counts of child neglect without great bodily harm.
Deputies said Stevenson's bedroom was "abnormally" clean compared with the condition of the rest of the home, with a flat-screen TV and bed linens. In contrast to the children's closets, hers was filled with clean clothes, according to the report.
The children's living conditions came to the attention of staff at Bagdad Elementary school, which three of the siblings attend, the probable cause affidavit said.
The second grader told authorities she didn't know when her last bath or shower had been. School staffers said they had repeatedly given the girl clean clothing to wear but that the child kept showing up dressed in the same outfits several days in a row as they became dirtier and dirtier.
A Florida Department of Children and Families report about the three siblings who attended the elementary school led to the sheriff's office launching an investigation April 18, the Pensacola News Journal reported.
The newspaper reported that Stevenson made bond the day after her arrest and was released Saturday, the day after her arrest.
A DCF spokesman could not release information on the children's current whereabouts.
