A Wyoming mother has been accused of child endangerment after police claim she left her toddler home alone to go out to a bar, where she allegedly was involved in a fight with another female patron.
The February 18 dispute inside Laramie’s Ranger Bar did not erupt in fisticuffs, but police claim the two women — including mom Kayla Marie Clark — had each other’s hair firmly wrapped in each other’s grasps. Police called to the bar arrived shortly after the other woman’s son somehow managed to separate the ladies.
Clark, according to Cowboy State Daily, was allegedly uncooperative while talking to police, and claimed the other woman put hands on her first. The report claims she was sitting in the bar’s smoking room having a conversation when the other woman confronted her about an unrelated incident involving the son and her husband.
Clark, 25, said to police the other woman “began to put hands on me,” so she “began biting [the other woman on the head] out of ‘self-defense’ and bit the top of her head,” according to the affidavit, cited in the report. Clark also allegedly admitted she tried to knee the other woman in the face as they were tussling.
The fight ended up disrupting the bar’s karaoke night.
While police were interviewing people in the bar, the other woman apparently told police she knew that Clark had a toddler, and that she leaves the child home alone on a regular basis.
When questioned about the 2-year-old, Clark was allegedly evasive, according to the report, and “she repeatedly spoke about needing to call her ‘babysitter’ or her ‘husband’ about her 2-year-old.”
Then, her story started changing, according to the police. Clark allegedly “gave multiple versions of where [the child] was and who was watching [the baby], all of which were eventually determined not to be true,” the affidavit says, the site reported. “Clark led officers to multiple inaccurate addresses intentionally, for the purposes of keeping law enforcement from locating [the child].”
Clark’s husband was contacted at work and provided the correct address and even conceded to police the child was likely all alone.
He also said that Clark had left the 2-year-old “unattended previously on numerous occasions” and gave police consent to enter the home to check on the child. Once inside, the conditions were unbearable.
Police heard “an excessively loud nursery rhyme tune coming from a bedroom with the door closed within the apartment” and emanating from a tablet hanging on the wall and the tune was on a loop.”
As they entered the bedroom, officers were met by a wall of “overwhelming heat,” and determined it was “more than 90 degrees Fahrenheit. This heat and air had the odor of human feces.”
A space heater turned to “max” was also left on in the room, which “was unequivocally a safety/fire hazard. A digital thermometer later confirmed the noted high temperatures.”
The child was in the sweltering bedroom, “wearing a diaper with sweatpants over-top and a ‘nappy’ over the sweatpants as if to restrict the child from accessing or removing the diaper,” according to the affidavit. “The sweatpants were wet and soiled.”
As for feeding the child, officers found several sippy cups in the room, along with a small mattress on the floor covered with stuffed animals. “All these facts indicated … that [the child] had been left alone for a lengthy period and that Clark had taken measures to leave [the child] unattended for such a period,” the affidavit says, according to the site.
They also discovered “various suspected controlled substances and paraphernalia” along with marijuana.
“It appeared that with the presence of those items that drugs were being ingested in the household where [the child] resided, and due to their location were easily within reach,” the affidavit says.
Clark, who allegedly backhanded a cop while being processed, has been charged with felony interference with a peace officer and misdemeanor endangering children, battery possession of a controlled substance, and interference.
She has posted an $80,000 cash bond for her release, records indicate. She has a preliminary hearing set for March 26, where she will likely be asked for pleas.
