Arkansas mother arrested after children found wandering, police say

Jennifer Cossey
Jennifer Cossey

A woman in Pulaski County was arrested on misdemeanor charges after sheriff's deputies said they found her children wandering in soiled diapers in a rural area of the county.

The two children, ages 3 and 4, also had bug bites on their feet and legs when they were found wandering Monday on Speaker Lane, a dead-end street in the community of Landmark, deputies wrote in a report.

According to the report, a man at the end of the street told police he saw the children on motion-sensor cameras in his front yard early Monday morning, but he did not know who their guardian was.

Deputies determined the children lived with their mother, 31-year-old Jennifer Cossey, at a house down the street.

Inside the house, deputies found moldy food and unsanitary conditions, along with the smell of urine and feces, the report said. When asked about her children, Cossey told police at first she did not know they were missing, according to the report.

The Arkansas Department of Human Services was contacted and advised of the conditions at the home, and Cossey was taken to the Pulaski County jail, according to the report.

Cossey was charged with two counts of misdemeanor child endangerment, according to her court records. She was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

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