When Sarasota Police were called to one particular home in Florida, they could never have been prepared for what they were about to see. As soon as they stepped inside, what they saw literally took their breath away.
Kimberly Haygood and Anthony Jones are the parents of three children – a boy and a girl, who are four-year-old twins, and a six-year-old boy. After Kimberly took one of the twins into the All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, police were alerted by the Department of Children and Families (DCF) because the boy appeared severely underweight and malnourished.
Once cops arrived at the home, they couldn’t believe their eyes. The twin boy’s “body was skin and bones,” explained Detective Megan Buck, according to Daily Mail. He “took my breath away,” he added. In fact, the child was so underfed that he weighed approximately the same as an “11-month-old baby and ‘looked like a skeleton.’” His twin sister weighed only two pounds more.
Every child was extremely malnourished and dehydrated, but the young boy’s condition was by far the most severe out of the three children. After evaluating the children, police found scars on both of the boys that were consistent with how wounds would appear after being beaten with a belt. The 6-year-old boy had severe scarring from the beatings and stated that the twins would get hit if they soiled themselves.
Kimberly excuses the twin boy’s condition as a result of a food aversion, stating she could only get him to consume Cheetos and milk. However, as Daily Mail reported, medical tests “found that the boy’s intestines were completely empty. The doctor carrying out the health check told police that even milk would leave traces of food and residue and that they believed the four-year-old had only been given water.”
Unfortunately, the twin boy’s malnutrition has caused a developmental delay, and he is still unable to speak. In addition, his body had no hair and had a severe rash as a result of his body not receiving the proper amount of nutrients he needs to survive.
The children have since been taken into state care. As for Kimberly and Anthony, they have been charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse and two counts of child neglect with great bodily harm. Kimberly was additionally charged with another count of child neglect, and Anthony has been charged with an additional count of child abuse.
Hopefully, these children will now get the opportunity to experience life. It’s nothing short of a miracle that the officers were called to their home that day, otherwise terrible things could have continued to happen. It’s a shame that parents abuse their children and mistake them for something other than a blessing from God.