Insets (top to bottom): Keisha Epps and Tamra Stewart (Jacksonville Sheriff's Office). Background: The parking lot of Forward Air Inc. in Jacksonville, Fla. (Google Maps).
A Florida couple landed behind bars after police said they forced four children to live in a semitruck for several years.
Keisha Epps, 51, and Tamra Stewart, 37, were both charged with four counts of child neglect after police said they found the couple's four children living out of the cab of a semitruck in Jacksonville, Florida. According to arrest reports reviewed by Law&Crime, Epps was working as a truck driver for Forward Air Inc. and living with Stewart and her four children, whose ages were redacted from court records. Detectives with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office were investigating Stewart in connection with a "sexual battery" case when they found him in a truck in the parking lot of Forward Air Inc.
Police said they found the four children, who told the officers they had been living in the truck since 2019.
According to the arrest reports, police said the children all shared one bed in the cab of the truck Epps was using for work. While Epps was driving, Stewart was responsible for caring for the children, who told investigators they were allegedly "rarely allowed" to leave the truck, "even if they needed to use the restroom."
In interviews with the children, police said they were told that all four children shared one mattress on the top bunk of a bed in the cab of the truck. Because all four were sharing the bed, they "could not lay the length of the bed and had to lay side by side and curled up because they could not fit." Police noted in their report that the children walked with an "unnatural gait" due to being confined in the truck.
Police said the children told them they were "fed poorly" and had not gone to school for five years. Instead, the children said, their education came from an app, which was not a "formal educational tool," nor did it come from an accredited institution. The children allegedly never received medical or dental care. One of the children told police that she "burned herself badly with cooked noodles," saying there was "a lot of blood." Instead of taking the child to a doctor, Epps allegedly "just wrapped it" and "rewrapped it again later."
Police said another child had contracted a sexually transmitted disease that was diagnosed in May by the Child Protection team in Clay County.
According to the report, the children said they witnessed Stewart allegedly committing sexual battery in the truck. When they tried to confront Stewart, the children said he allegedly "beat them by punching them in their heads, multiple times." The children told police they tried to tell Epps about what they saw, but she "did not believe them" and called them "derogatory names." Police said Epps "blamed" the children for Stewart's behavior.
The current status of the children was not included in the report.
Local CBS affiliate WJAX received a statement from Forward Air Inc. that said Epps was "an independent subcontractor, not a Forward Air employee. She has been removed from service and is ineligible for dispatch while criminal proceedings are ongoing. The alleged conduct is inconsistent with Forward Air's values and commitment to the highest levels of safety. Forward Air is fully cooperating with local officials on their investigation into this matter."
Epps and Stewart were arrested on Aug. 6 and booked into the Duval County Jail, where both are still in custody. They are both scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 27.
Police said sexual battery charges were filed against Stewart in Florida's 9th Judicial Circuit, which serves Orange County and Osceola County.