HOT SPRINGS, AR – Police arrest a mother of a 5-year-old who was found running down the street alone and barefoot in the cold early last Saturday (1/10) morning.
Kellie Bowers, 43, faces a charge of endangering the welfare of a minor.
She has since bonded out of jail but her son is in the custody of his grandmother.
Hot Springs Police got the call Saturday morning and found the 5-year-old near Central Avenue running and coughing. The report says the temperature was about 20 degrees at the time.
“You have a child out that time of morning, with that temperature and no shoes, it definitely could have been a lot worse,” said Cpl. McCrary Means with the Hot Springs Police Department.
The child told police when he woke up no one was home. He was able to direct the Officers to where he lived.
There police found a man asleep naked in a front bedroom at the house. Once he got up and dressed the boy identified him as “Aunt Candy’s boyfriend’. The man offered to try and find a number for Bowers but ran from the officers through the back and got away.
Officers found drugs they identified as meth on the coffee table along with drug paraphernalia.
The mother was arrested after showing up a short time later. She told police she just needed a break.
The child was taken from the home by DHS but we’re told he is now in his grandmother’s custody.
