LEXINGTON, Mo. — Prosecutors have charged a Lexington, Mo., mother with endangering the welfare of a child and animal abuse after her three children and a pet dog were found locked inside an apartment swarming with insects and covered in feces.
Christeena M. Adair, 24, was arrested after an officer with the Department of Children’s Division and a police officer conducted a welfare check at Adair’s home in Lexington, Mo.
According to the probable cause, the responding officers found a five-year-old child and two three-year-old children in the home. The children were dirty and one was naked. The officers noted an overwhelming smell of urine and feces and saw “thousands” of cockroaches and flies throughout the home. Bags of trash littered the floor and no food was found in the refrigerator. Other parts of the house were dirty, with feces smeared on the wall and unknown “slimy” filth that officers believed was insect feces.
In one of the bedrooms one of the officers said they opened a closet door and “hundreds of cockroaches came flying out, landing on me.”
The responding officers located the children’s mother in the next apartment over with her boyfriend. When officers asked Adair to produce clean clothes for the children, she said their clothes were all dirty because she did not have a washer or dryer, however the apartment complex provides these for its residents in the basement.
Adair was placed under arrest after the children were taken to another location. A dog also found in the home was removed and transported to an area dog shelter.