
Insets, top to bottom: Jeneixa Rodriguez-Crespo and Fermin Medrano-Perez. Background: Deputies rescue a 4-year-old boy who escaped from his home in DeLand, Florida (Volusia County Sheriff's Office).
Deputies in Florida found a 4-year-old boy wandering alone in a pond and then discovered he was living in a home infested with bugs and filled with animal feces, authorities said.
The child's parents, 24-year-old Jeneixa Rodriguez-Crespo and 25-year-old Fermin Medrano-Perez, are now facing child neglect and animal cruelty charges, records show.
Neighbors called the Volusia County Sheriff's Office around 8 a.m. Saturday after spotting the toddler wading in a DeLand pond. Deputies quickly rescued the boy when they arrived on scene. He was wearing only a diaper and splashing in the water, police body camera video showed.
Deputies learned the boy lived nearby and went to the house. The door was "slightly ajar," according to an arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime. Medrano-Perez became "frantic" when deputies told him his son was in the pond, cops wrote.
Once deputies went inside, they allegedly found "filthy conditions" which included a roach infestation, "copious" amounts of dog urine and feces and mold. Deputies also found a caged, neglected dog, they said.
Rodriguez-Crespo, who was at work, returned home.
Both parents told police they bought the home about a year ago and noticed a cockroach infestation, claiming they called an exterminator to address it. They said their dog urinates and defecates in the home, but they only clean it up "once a week," cops wrote.
Medrano-Perez said he was watching the boy around 7:15 a.m. The boy was playing on the floor when Medrano-Perez fell asleep on the recliner. The father said he believed his wife left the door unlocked when she left for work at 6 a.m. and his son must have opened the door himself and walked outside to play.
He had "no other explanation for the homes condition other than a full-time work schedule and the inability to keep the bug infestation at bay with the financial resources available to his family currently."
Both parents were arrested while a grandparent came to pick up the boy. The suspects have since posted bond. Their next court dates are not listed.
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