Background: Doddridge County Early Learning Academy in West Union, W.Va. (Google Maps). Insets (left to right): Dwayne and Dorothy Hickman (Doddridge County Sheriff's Office).
The parents of a West Virginia boy who came to elementary school with bugs in his backpack will avoid jail time.
Dwayne Hickman, 37, and Dorothy Hickman, 29, both pleaded guilty to one count of child neglect and were sentenced to two years of probation followed by two years of unsupervised probation. Both parents also received a six-month suspended jail sentence. As Law&Crime previously reported, staff at the elementary school that the Hickmans' children attended expressed concerns to police about the children's well-being. Police said staff found cockroaches in the son's backpack. The daughter asked her teacher if she could wash her "very dirty" clothes.
On Feb. 10, a teacher from the Doddridge County Early Learning Academy in West Union, West Virginia, a town around 30 miles west of the state's border with Ohio, contacted police and said that a child had bug bites on his "face, hands, and bottom." The boy's condition and the girl's request that a teacher wash her clothes led the Doddridge County Sheriff's Office to contact Child Protective Services (CPS).
When officials from CPS visited the Hickmans' home, they reported "extreme deplorable living conditions" and took the children out of their parents' custody. The children's current custody status is unknown.
Dwayne and Dorothy Hickman were each charged with two counts of gross neglect of a child creating a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury and arrested on Feb. 12.
On April 28 and May 1, Dorothy and Dwayne Hickman, respectively, entered guilty pleas to one count of child neglect.
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