Father charged with abandoning young kids while wife worked hospital shift: affidavit
A Haysville father has been charged with three counts of child abandonment for allegedly leaving his young children at home alone while his wife was working an overnight shift at a local hospital this spring.
The Eagle is not naming the father, 31, to protect the identity of the children, who are 5, 4 and 2 years of age.
According to an arrest affidavit released this month, the wife called 911 and asked police officers to check on the welfare of her children in April after she couldn’t get a hold of her husband for at least two and a half hours and saw her children all sleeping on a living room couch on her home security cameras.
The wife used a tracking application on her phone to find her husband; it showed he was at a private bar in Wichita that the wife told police was a hangout for an outlaw motorcycle gang, the affidavit says.
An officer who went to the family’s home around midnight knocked on a window and shined a flashlight inside to wake up the children. The couple’s 4-year-old went to the door and talked to police, who noted in the affidavit that all of the children were crying and “seemed upset that their father was not home.”
Their mother left the hospital after seeing the children alone through the security system and arrived at the house a short time.
Officers arrested the father after they saw his truck sitting in the driveway of the home around 5 a.m. Police said in the affidavit that the father smelled of alcohol.
The father denied being in Wichita or at a bar and told the officer he’d only left his children alone to go to a nearby Kwik Shop for a drink. His cellphone location data, which police collected using a search warrant, however, showed him at addresses in Haysville and south Wichita during his multi-hour absence from home, the affidavit says.
Prosecutors filed the felony charges against the father in late June, more than two months after the alleged abandonment. He first appeared in court on July 13 and is currently awaiting his next hearing.
His public defender wrote in a recent court filing that substance abuse played a role in the father’s alleged actions in April and that he had “taken steps to become sober prior to charges being filed.” Those steps include completing inpatient drug treatment and attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at least twice a week.
He also plans to attend parenting classes, the public defender wrote in the filing.
