Florida Woman Allegedly Left Boy In Home That Smelled Of 'Fecal Matter,' Without Running Water Or Electricity For 9 Days

A Florida woman was arrested over the weekend for allegedly leaving a child to live alone in a house with no running water or electricity for more than a week.

Autumn Lee Beede, a 39-year-old Cantonment resident, was taken into custody and booked at the Escambia County Jail on Saturday on a child neglect charge, the Pensacola News Journal reports. Her arrest came after the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office performed a welfare check at a private residence on Feb. 14 and found a child living alone in a house that had a “heavy odor of fecal matter,” according to an arrest report obtained by the outlet.

Witnesses told authorities that the child, whose age was redacted from the report, had been without adult supervision, running water, or electricity from Feb. 5 to Feb. 14, the News Journal reports. Upon contact with the deputy, the boy stated that both the electricity and the water had been cut off because the bills were not paid, forcing him to reach out to friends and others in the community for food and water, according to the outlet. Beede was aware that he was living alone, the boy said, but he had not had any contact with her since December of last year; she most recently left pastries for him on the front porch of the home on Feb. 14, but he did not see her on that day, he said, according to the outlet.

The child told authorities that he’d been living with an adult male until Feb. 5, when that man was incarcerated, the News Journal reports. The boy’s relationship to the male is unclear, and his relationship to Beede was redacted from the report.

Beede was released from custody on Sunday after posting $5,000 bond, online jail records show. Further records show that she’d previously been jailed for parole violations and driving under the influence.