Background: A section of West New York Avenue in Orange City, Florida (Google Maps). Inset: Jacqueline Daniel (Volusia County Sheriff”s Office).
A Florida woman is accused of allowing her three kids to live in squalor in a home authorities described as a “house of horror” and “the worst house in the world.”
Jacqueline Daniel, 43, stands charged with three counts of child neglect, according to Volusia County court records. She was arrested on Monday.
Deputies with the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office responded to the home on West New York Avenue in Orange City to help the Florida Department of Children and Families check on the children, according to a charging affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime.
But what officers say they encountered shocked them.
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It was “the worst house in the world … completely overwhelmed with roaches, lice, black mold, feces, and trash piled high,” Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said, per Orlando NBC affiliate WESH. “By the mother’s own admission, she says the house isn’t fit for humans to be living there — it wasn’t even fit for an animal.”
Daniel is believed to have known how dangerous the conditions were and allowed them to continue nonetheless. In body camera footage reviewed by the local outlet, the Florida mother reportedly stated to responding deputies, “I know I deserve this … I want a chance to get this right.”
The children, ages 9, 10, and 15, had lice in their hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, the sheriff’s office said – with one of them needing to be hospitalized because the infestation was so severe. Daniel “admitted to knowing” that her children had lice and weren’t being treated for it, the affidavit states.
Chitwood called the residence “one of the worst I’ve ever seen” and expressed how the situation could have gotten even worse if deputies hadn’t arrived.
One bedroom in the home was filled with cockroaches while another one was locked, the court document states. The children’s bathroom sink is also said to have been clogged with foam and brown water.
Cockroaches were “falling off the ceiling, crawling all around the floors/furniture,” and one child was “observed sitting on the couch with cockroaches crawling on her” and all over her brother’s bed. There were also “holes in the walls with cockroaches leaving and entering” and “what appeared to be black mold/dirt/dust” around one room.
The sheriff added that Daniel appeared to be more concerned about how going to jail could affect her massage therapy license than the well-being of her kids, local Fox affiliate WOFL reported. She said “she does not get any child support and has been having a rough time trying to get a better job while also taking care of her children,” per the affidavit.
The children were reportedly taken to Fish Memorial Hospital in Orange City to be treated and are now in the custody of the state. Daniel was booked into the Volusia County Jail and made her first court appearance on Tuesday.
However, court records show she was released from custody later that day.
