4 children found home alone while Florida mom was on 3-day cruise
FILE (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A Florida mother walked off a three-day cruise to the Bahamas and into a Miami-Dade County jail on Monday after being accused of leaving her four children, including a two-month-old infant, home by themselves so she could go on the weekend getaway.
Big picture view:
Customs and Border Protection officers took the woman, Nathalie Belizaire, into custody right after she disembarked from the Carnival Conquest cruise ship on Monday and handed the North Miami Beach woman over to the local police department, court documents show. She appeared in court Tuesday morning where she was facing four counts of felony child neglect.
Timeline:
The North Miami Beach Police Department was alerted that the children might be home alone by the father of the two-month-old child. According to the criminal complaint, he told investigators that he spotted a WhatsApp story post by Belizaire that appeared to show a cruise ticket on Thursday and was told by the 29-year-old mother that she was going to leave the children with their great-grandmother.
Two days later, the child’s father went to Belizaire’s home, where he saw that the television was on and could hear children inside, the complaint continued. The police department’s report states both its officers and firefighters responded to the scene and forced their way into the apartment where the four children were found hiding together in the bathroom.
The complaint did not list the ages of all four children, but indicated that, in addition to the infant, one of the other children was two years old.
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Dig deeper:
The children’s great-grandmother told police that Belizaire told her that she would drop off the children because she was going out of town, but never did. Belizaire’s brother added that he was told to check on the children.
Through the course of their investigation, police determined that Belizaire had purchased the three-day ticket for a cruise that departed on Friday. Three days later, local and federal law enforcement were waiting for her when the ship returned.
What's next:
Belizaire has since been released on a $2,500 bond. She is due to return to court for her arraignment on November 24.
The Source: Information for this article was taken from Miami-Dade Clerk of Court records and the North Miami Beach Police Department. This story was reported from Orlando.