A woman was cited last week on an endangerment charge after a 2-year-old girl was found walking alone, unclothed, in the middle of a Jonesboro intersection, police said.
Officer David Stout was flagged down around 8 a.m. Tuesday by a man who said his sister had taken a naked child to his house, according to a Jonesboro Police Department report.
The 45-year-old woman told Stout that she was awakened by a vehicle's horn. She went outside and spoke with a driver who said she found the child walking in the middle of Center Street, the report states.
The woman reportedly told the driver that she knew where the child lived and went to the child's residence, but no one answered the door when she knocked. According to reports, the woman said there was an ongoing problem with the child's mother.
Stout went to the child's home, noting in reports that he had previously been at the French Street residence to tell the mother to get her older children out of the roadway.
When he knocked on the door, he reported hearing Malarie Cheyenne McGinnis respond to him in a "muffled voice" from the back of the home.
The officer wrote that the 24-year-old emerged from the house in "disheveled clothing" and "rubbing her eyes," adding that it appeared she had been asleep. McGinnis said she had been in the bathroom, according to the report.
She was cited on a charge of third-degree endangering the welfare of a minor and is to appear in court Wednesday. Police said she was released to take care of the child but that the incident had been reported to the State Police Child Abuse hotline.
NW News on 05/13/2018