Inset: Logan Nickolas (Greenfield Police Department). Background: The apartment complex where a diaper-clad toddler was found wandering alone in the snow in Greenfield, Ind. (Google Maps).
An Indiana man was recently arrested after his toddler was found frostbitten and wandering around in the freezing snow wearing only a diaper, police in the Hoosier state say.
Logan Nickolas, 20, stands accused of one count each of neglect of a dependent resulting in bodily injury, and neglect of a dependent where the defendant places dependent in a situation that endangers them, according to the Greenfield Police Department.
The underlying incident occurred on Monday afternoon, according to a press release issued by the police department.
Around 3 p.m., officers were called to the Prairie Meadows Apartment Homes in Greenfield – a small town located along the far eastern edge of the broader Indianapolis metro area.
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Police arrived in response to a report about the unattended, barely clothed child, according to the press release.
One woman called to report she heard a crying child, then went outside to find the 2-year-old standing in the snow with skin the color of beets, according to court documents obtained by Indianapolis-based Fox affiliate WXIN. The temperature at the time was 13 degrees.
Outside one of the apartment homes, responding officers found the child in question, one wrapped the toddler in his coat, and put them "inside a warm vehicle until EMS personnel arrived," police said.
"Officers found footprints in the snow around the complex where the toddler was located, indicating that they were walking through the snow for a while," according to the press release.
Those footprints allegedly continued some 750 feet and led back to an apartment unit on Switch Grass Drive with an open front door.
"Officers made announcements into the apartment and got no response," the press release alleges. So, then the police went in.
Inside, officers found the defendant, who is the child's father, sleeping on the couch, according to the police department.
After the responding officers made "several loud announcements," Nickolas finally woke up, said the child belonged to him, and belonged inside the apartment, law enforcement claims.
Police also gathered several other impressions about the apartment itself into the charging document obtained by the local TV station.
The smell of burnt marijuana was apparent inside, police claim. At the top of the stairs, a baby gate was installed, but unlatched, police allege. A handgun sat on one countertop, allegedly, adjacent to a plate with a cut straw on top, an apparent allusion to drug paraphernalia.
Nickolas, for his part, insisted he had not used any drugs but, rather, "dozed off" due to his late-night work schedule, police said.
But that story did not align with what the child's mother had to say.
In a subsequent interview, the child's mother said Nickolas had recently been using marijuana, cocaine, and "any other type of drug that he could get his hands on," according to the charging document.
The child's mother told police she was at work and had been allowing the child's father to stay at her home "on and off" for a week. On the day in question, the mother had repeatedly tried to reach the defendant by phone, to no avail, according to the charging document.
When EMS personnel arrived, the child was determined to be suffering from severe hypothermia and frostbite afflicting their fingers and toes, law enforcement said. The toddler was then rushed to a nearby hospital and treated for their injuries in stable condition.
Another resident at the apartment complex spoke with NBC affiliate WTHR about the shocking discovery on that cold, cold day.
"I saw him," the woman said, explaining that she asked a neighbor to dial 911. "No pants, no shoes – just a diaper. If I can't feel my fingers or my toes, I know that baby can't either. That baby should have never been out there without clothes. I don't even know if the baby had eaten. That's my biggest concern — being out there in the cold and ice."
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