Background: A section of Roh Ranch Lane in Callaway, Md. (Google Maps). Insets (from left to right): Kaylynn Nicole Moore and James Earl Stone (St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office).
The daily routine of a Maryland mother and her boyfriend included locking her 4-year-old child inside a dark closet without food for 12 hours, authorities in The Old Line State say.
Kaylynn Nicole Moore, 28, and James Earl Stone, 27, have been charged with child abuse and seven counts of child neglect, the St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office announced on Tuesday. The defendants were brought to the St. Mary's County Detention and Rehabilitation Center in Leonardtown, Maryland, to await bond hearings.
On Monday, deputies were called to a home on the 2000 block of Roh Ranch Lane in Callaway, a coastal community located some 70 miles south of Washington. The law enforcement officers had been notified by a caller that "a child was being held in a closet."
The sheriff's office said its deputies "were given consent" to enter the home, and when they did so, they found a closet door "secured by a bungee cord." Inside was a 4-year-old child.
Authorities subsequently checked the child's medical condition and determined that three adults and four other children lived in the home. The other kids "did not require medical attention," the sheriff's office said.
When deputies obtained a search warrant for the residence and executed it, they reportedly found the closet where the 4-year-old had been kept "in deplorable condition, with no working light, and they did not observe any edible food inside the closet."
Moore allegedly told investigators that her child was "left in the closet daily for approximately 12 hours." Stone was identified as Moore's boyfriend, who also lived in the residence, and he apparently "admitted to using the bungee cord to secure the closet door."
It's unclear who the third adult was.
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