Background: Law enforcement officers investigate the conditions of a home on Floran Street in Columbia, S.C. (WIS/YouTube). Insets (from left to right): Zana Oden and Malik Locke (Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center).
A mother and father are accused of leaving their children to fend for themselves in a South Carolina home filled with cockroaches while a fire burned.
Zana Oden, 28, and Malik Locke, 21, are each charged with three counts of neglect by a legal custodian, according to Richland County jail records reviewed by Law&Crime. Oden is being held in the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center on $300,000 bond while Locke is being held on $200,000 bond.
At about 9:30 p.m. on Monday, officers with the Columbia Police Department said they arrived at a home "to find smoke coming from the residence." Firefighters were also there, and they forced their way inside and "immediately encountered heavy smoke and rapidly deteriorating interior conditions."
The fire inside the home, located on Floran Street in Columbia, South Carolina, according to local NBC and The CW affiliate WIS, was blazing in the front section of the house. As firefighters worked to contain it, they found three children — ages 6, 4 and 2 — "in and near several bedrooms."
Authorities "quickly" took the kids from the home and gave them medical treatment "for severe burn injuries," the police department said. The children were then brought to a local hospital before being transferred to Augusta Burn Center in Georgia.
Police said that as of Tuesday evening, all three children remained in "critical but stable condition while receiving specialized medical care."
Authorities noted that no adults were at the home at the time of the fire. Investigators say they tracked Oden to an apartment about a mile away on Ripplemeyer Avenue. They say that when they tried to take her into custody, she tried to "evade arrest by hiding inside a closet."
She was arrested. It is unclear if Locke was also at the apartment on Ripplemeyer.
Locke is the father of one of the children, while Oden is the mother of all three, according to the local outlet. During a bond hearing on Wednesday, prosecutors alleged the children were home alone for at least a week before the fire.
The youngest child was very malnourished, and one of the kids had insects in her diaper, authorities said. A victims' advocate reportedly claimed that Oden admitted to leaving the home but tried to come back until she saw police and fled again, while Locke's attorney said he had been kicked out of the house.
"We had knowledge that she was in the area," Columbia Deputy Police Chief Melron Kelly said of Oden, per area CBS affiliate WLTX. "Even after knowing what had happened here, she still did not contact law enforcement; she still didn't contact family members."
Authorities allege that Locke knew the fire was blazing, too, and warned Oden about police.
Columbia Fire Chief Aubrey D. Jenkins said the conditions inside the home were "deplorable," adding that there were "big roaches … an army of roaches" in the home "getting all over these kids."
Authorities reportedly suggested additional charges could be coming for the mother and father.