Kids escape fire alone, parents charged with neglect

Taser guns may be the preferred choice to restrain violent persons, but the legal system will deal with a couple who left two kids alone at home. Forty-seven year old Willard Leslie and thirty-one year old Kimberly Alford, a common-law couple of Vista Del Mar, Ladyville, appeared today in Magistrates’ Court where they were charged with Child Neglect. The couple pleaded not guilty to the charge and Magistrate Tracy Sosa offered each of them bail of three thousand dollars and adjourned their case until January eighth, 2009.

At ten-fifteen a.m. November eighth, police responded to a fire at number seven Vista Del Mar where they saw a small wooden house engulfed in flames. But it wasn’t the fire that caught their attention but two boys, five and three year old Kayson and Timothy Card, standing alone in front of the blazing fire. Timothy had burn marks on his right forearm and on his right ear. The brothers had been left alone in the home by their parents who were nowhere in sight. Timothy was taken to the hospital where he was examined by a doctor who classified his injuries as Harm. After being questioned, the children’s mother, Alford, said she left her sons alone at home because she had to take her eight year old daughter to Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital for treatment and she could not take all her children. Her common-law husband went to inquire about a job and intended to return a short time later. Alford said her family lost all their belongings in the fire which is believed to have started from a lit candle.