Inset: Tenisha Ann Echols (Marion County Jail). Background: The apartment complex where Echols allegedly left her kids unattended (WXIN).
A 27-year-old mother in Indiana already on probation in connection with the death of her 6-month-old daughter who died in 2019 as a result of neglect has been arrested again, this time for allegedly leaving her four young children home alone for the better part of two weeks.
Tenisha Ann Echols was taken into custody on Monday and charged with multiple new counts of child neglect, records show. According to a probable cause affidavit, police at around 9:15 p.m. on Sunday responded to an apartment complex on Troy Avenue in regard to a call from Echols’ mother, who said she’d received a disturbing call from her 8-year-old granddaughter. The girl was crying because she had been left home alone with her three younger siblings — a 6-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a 4-month-old — and had barely seen her mother for the last two weeks.
Upon arriving at the address, police said the door was unlocked and there was partially-eaten food and trash “all over the floor,” the children’s beds were bare mattresses, and it appeared as though “an adult hadn’t been around in days.”
The 8-year-old told police that Echols typically leaves her alone to care for the other children, including the infant. The child attempted to call her mom several times but Echols did not answer the phone, the affidavit says.
Police were able to get in touch with Echols, who arrived at the apartment at about 10 p.m., claiming she had just gone out briefly to “get medicine for one of the kids.” She was handcuffed and read her Miranda rights then subsequently agreed to speak with detectives.
Asked how long she had been gone, Echols allegedly said, “About 20 minutes.” Police noted the “time itself didn’t make sense” based on the facts provided by the grandmother and 8-year-old child.
When confronted with her daughter’s claims, Echols allegedly admitted that she had been out all day and usually “leaves her kids home alone with the 8-year-old at times because she doesn’t feel like dragging them all out of the house at once.”
Asked whether she thought it was safe to leave an 8-year-old in charge of a 4-month-old, police said Echols “gave no reply.”
Echols also told officers that most members of her family were blocked from calling her because she did not want to argue with them over “her sexuality.”
The children were removed from the house and placed in the custody of their grandmother.
At the time of Echols’ arrest, she was still on probation for the December 2019 death of her infant daughter, De’Reya, who died of multiple blunt force injuries, Indianapolis ABC affiliate WRTV reported. An autopsy showed that the infant suffered multiple skull fractures, a large burn on her arm, and fractures to her tibia as well as her ribs. De’Reya’s death was ruled a homicide.
Echols in July 2023 pleaded guilty to one count of neglect of a dependent resulting in serious bodily injury. In a controversial decision that went against the recommendation of prosecutors, Judge Jennifer Harrison handed down a lenient sentence that included two years of home detention followed by two years of probation and no time in prison.
The latest neglect charges against Echols violated her probation, leading a judge to order that she be held in pretrial detention without bond until her next court appearance on July 8.
