Mom left three children home alone for days while she went to Florida for a friend’s liposuction surgery, police say

WESTLAKE, Ohio (WOIO/Gray News) – An Ohio mother could face jail time after police discovered she left her children home alone for nearly three days while she went to Florida.

A judge ruled that 32-year-old Domonique Knowles endangered her children when she left them alone and without a phone.

The mother rarely checked in with them, used FaceTime on a laptop and monitored them from the home’s security cameras, police said.

Police said Knowles left her 10-year-old child in charge of her two 7-year-old twin sisters with special needs.

Officials said Knowles took her eight-month-old son to Florida but left her three other children home alone.

Police credited the 10-year-old’s fourth-grade teacher with bringing the issue to light.

“(The 10-year-old) told her teacher that she talked to mom on camera last night and that mom ordered Uber Eats for them and left it at the door,” the teacher said in a call to police. requesting officers conduct a welfare check at the home.

When officers arrived, police said the apartment was filthy and liquid had been spilled all over the floor. While officers were there, one of the twin girls slipped and fell.

Prosecutor Michael Maloney said he was shocked when he was given the case.

“My mom wasn’t really checking in… working remotely is one thing; a remote mother is another. But mom wasn’t even checking in,” Maloney said. “The girls made that clear.”

Police eventually tracked down the children’s grandmother. Maloney said Knowles never told her mother she was leaving the children alone and moving out of state.

“It was worse,” Maloney said. “My mother lied to her mother. There were adults available to help.”

Knowles initially denied ever leaving Ohio, but police were able to prove she spent two nights in Miami.

“She lied,” Maloney said. “They showed her leaving Hopkins airport on the night in question, and timed the calls showing her mother at a Miami airport in the span of about two hours, which of course is about the flight time from Cleveland to Miami , and when mom was confronted about it, she changed her story and said something about having to be in Miami because her friend needed liposuction surgery.

Police arrested Knowles and charged her with child endangerment.

“My kids are allowed to be here alone,” Knowles told police in a body camera video.

“Not when you have two children with special needs,” the arresting officer responded.

Maloney also said a patio door in the home was unlocked.

“Every teacher and counselor at the school said there is no doubt that these girls would have run away if they had been given the chance, and I don’t want to explain what could have happened then – a kidnapping, running away behind a car.”

Knowles was found guilty of child endangerment earlier this month. She will be sentenced on Wednesday and faces up to six months in prison.

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