The home in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, where children were reportedly found living in dangerous conditions (WTAE/YouTube).
A Pennsylvania mother has learned her punishment for leaving her children to fend for themselves in a filthy, unsafe home while she was miles away with her boyfriend.
Heidi Beer, 35, has been sentenced to between three and 23 months in prison, according to court records reviewed by Law&Crime.
She faces three years of probation after her release and, according to Pittsburgh-based ABC affiliate WTAE, six months of electronic monitoring in the same home that is the root of the entire case.
The defendant earlier pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of children as a parent or guardian, recklessly endangering another person, and making a false report.
Beer and her mother, 69-year-old Leslie Ann Keller, were arrested on July 28 after Vandergrift Borough police in Westmoreland County arrived at a home due to a report of a fight, as Law&Crime previously reported. The officers would end up finding much more.
A noticeable smell wafted from the property, officers said, according to a criminal complaint reviewed by the regional outlet. And, once inside, investigators had to “avoid stepping on large feces droppings all over the residence, rotten food and urine pooled all over the floors.” Four children between ages 9 and 16 were said to have been inside, with the oldest telling police that their mother, Beer, had not been home in days.
The children reportedly had no water, and the shower spigot was broken off.
“It was very obvious that water had not been on in a long time,” the affidavit stated, adding that the children”s beds were observed to be deflated air mattresses, and there were holes in the ceiling across the home.
The question remained as to where exactly the children’s guardians were.
Beer had reportedly been staying with her boyfriend in Pittsburgh – about a 50-minute drive away – who had asked her to leave the kids behind because he could “give her a new and better life without them.”
But Beer was not the children’s only guardian, authorities maintained, reporting that their grandmother, Keller, lived about a mile away and was aware of the lack of food and water at the kids’ home. One of the children said Keller had not gone inside the home in months because it was “too gross,” and she allegedly admitted that the kids would fill up empty cat litter containers with water at her house because there was no water at theirs.
As officers led the grandmother through Beer’s filthy home, she reportedly tried to chastise the oldest child — a 16-year-old girl — for not cleaning up, until a responding officer in turn scolded the older woman, telling her it was not the “children’s responsibility to clean this absolute disgrace of a mess.”
Keller was also charged with endangering the welfare of children as a parent or guardian. She is awaiting a formal arraignment.
