Girl, 12, found naked and rummaging in trash for food; mother faces child endangerment charges

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Girl, 12, found naked and rummaging in trash for food in Calif.
By Jason Kandel, NBC Los Angeles and msnbc.com staff

A teacher’s assistant from California faces child endangerment charges after her 12-year-old daughter was found naked and rummaging through trash cans for food, officials said.

Police were called on Thursday after a local resident saw a girl walking in Temecula, south-east of Los Angeles, wearing no clothes and eating food out of trash cans.

Tracy Betts, 40, a teaching assistant at nearby Vail Elementary, was arrested at the school on suspicion of felony child endangerment.

The girl completely naked, without even shoes on her feet, and trying to cover herself with a car floor mat, the newspaper said.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/20/10457661-girl-12-found-naked-and-rummaging-in-trash-for-food-in-calif

[yellerpup]

1. I read an update to this story yesterday.

The Thursday in the story was last Thursday and the girl has gained 17 pounds since spending her first week with foster parents. She was not starving from lack of food in the house. Her mother weighs 350 and her father, over 400 pounds. When she would beg for food by crying at the door to her dungeon in the basement, he mother would tell her she was 'too busy to cook'. She had siblings, none of whom received the treatment she got. Poor darling.

[Archae]

2. The girl you mention above lived in Madison, WI.

The one in the OP was in California.

http://www.sheboyganpress.com/article/20120221/SHE0101/302220010/Details-emerge-about-starved-teenage-girl-Madison?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|SHE-News|s

[yellerpup]

7. So much for MY update.

Sorry about that.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. I'm giving this a rec

That's all I can do. I'll never understand how people can victimize children. Never in this life can I or will I understand how this happened to one of our weakest. I don't understand when people hurt/starve/punch/kick/call names/sexually assault children . . . ditto the elderly, the infirm, the incapacitated, the handicapped, the homeless, the people locked up in themselves.

It's how those people are treated - and those who are found to be mistreated are - what defines humanity.

And humanity is looking pretty ugly to me right about now.

[librechik]

4. "Betts apparently left daughter in the vehicle naked so she wouldn't get out of the car

while Betts worked"--(from MSNBC article)

sick sick individual

[JustAnotherGen]

5. I bet she washes her beamer every week

Prado called 911, and police searched the neighborhood. Prado and her husband found the girl in a BMW parked on their street just around the corner, the newspaper said.

[Snake Alchemist]

9. Adding insult. nt

[Beaverhausen]

6. whenever I read these stories, I think of the potentially thousands of kids in this situation...

...or something similar who are never found. How can people be such monsters?

[Snake Alchemist]

8. What is going on in California's school?????

First the school where they had to eliminate the entire staff due to the prevalence of abusers and now this?!?!?!