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Seffner mother, others charged with child neglect

By BEN MONTGOMERY
Published May 12, 2006

SEFFNER - Over at Lot 17, the shouting went on and on.

"For hours," said Kelli Miller, who lives one trailer over at the Larrett Mobile Home Park on Black Dairy Road. "You could hear them yelling and screaming all the time."

The family tied the mutts to the trampoline and, according to neighbors, left the babies in a muddy pen made of chicken wire, sometimes from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

On Thursday afternoon, when sheriff's deputies showed up to serve a traffic court warrant on the mother, they found four sweaty, dirty, naked children locked in a bedroom with toys, flies and a broken air conditioner. Deputies saw old food, dirty clothes, dishes and human feces.

They found Crystal Chavez, 21, the mother of the children, sitting in the air conditioning in another bedroom. Deputies took her to jail on four counts of child neglect and an outstanding charge of driving while her license was suspended.

They also arrested three others: Chavez' boyfriend John S. Irick, 19, and his parents, Michael Boothe, 46, and Debra Boothe, 48.

Irick is charged with four counts of child neglect. The Boothes are each charged with four counts of child neglect and various counts of failure to report child abuse.

All were held on more than $25,000 bail Friday.

The children - boys, ages 5, 1 and 7 months, and a 3-year-old girl - were taken into protective custody by the Department of Children and Families.

It wasn't the first time DCF took the children from Chavez. They were returned less than three months ago, according to Chavez' husband, Jessie Lee Chavez, 27, who drove to the trailer to find out what was going on.

Chavez fathered two of the children, but is separated from Crystal Chavez. He said he and Crystal took parenting classes, passed home inspections by social service workers, and went to court to get the children back.

DCF spokesman Andy Ritter said he couldn't confirm whether DCF had taken the children before. In general, he said, the department occasionally deals with parents who take steps to get their children back and then fail to care for them properly.

"It has happened," he said. "Sometimes people can revert back to their old habits."

Miller, the neighbor, said Chavez cleaned the trailer until it was "spotless" before social workers arrived for a visit in order to get her children back. But days after the children returned, it was back to normal.

"We have a joke," she said. "We say the flies are trying to get out, not in. It is disgusting."

Miller wasn't the only neighbor to suspect something was wrong. Tammi McDougal's nephew said she often sneaked snacks to the five year old. But she was surprised when deputies hauled her four neighbors away.

"I had no clue it was that bad," she said.

Neighbors said they didn't call to report neglect.

"A lot of people don't get involved because they fear their neighbors getting mad at them," said Ritter, the DCF spokesman.

As television news crews interviewed neighbors, Chavez' sister drove toward the trailer in a mini-van.

"She fails to clean up a little bit of s--- and all this happens!" said Tina Chavez. "What's going on is a little bit extreme."

She said the kids locked themselves in the room. She said her sister always fed and took good care of her children.

They climbed back into the van and said they were headed to the courthouse.

No one was home Friday at the trailer, which rents for $520 a month. Flies buzzed against the window in the bedroom where the children were found. A foul odor seeped out. Strewn about the chicken wire pen were dirty baby dolls and a mud-covered Little Tykes car. Written in the film inside one window was this: I Love You.

Ben Montgomery can be reached at bmontgomery@sptimes.com or 813-661-2443.

[Last modified May 12, 2006, 20:07:02]