Home alone toddler survived on ketchup and dry pasta
A two-year-old girl left alone for nearly three weeks while her mother was in jail survived by eating mustard, ketchup, rice and raw pasta, police said.
The toddler was watching cartoons when found by her father, said police in Jacksonville, Florida.
She was suffering from malnutrition and was being treated in hospital today.
Dakeysha Lee, 22, was charged with child abuse because she failed to let anyone know that her daughter was alone in her apartment when she was jailed on September 10 on unrelated charges.
Ogden Lee, who is separated from the girl’s mother, said he talked to her by phone at the jail on Sunday and she said their daughter was with neighbours.
When he got into the apartment, the youngster had dragged food and toys into her mother’s bedroom and was lying in a baby’s bathtub. She was covered with dried ketchup, Lee said.
“She grabbed me and wouldn’t let go of me,” Lee said. ”It is really a miracle how good a shape my daughter is in. I don’t know how she did it.”
