Mom returns home to find police already there with her two little kids. Now she’s in jail
Feeling “overwhelmed,” a Boynton Beach mom left her two children — ages 4 and 1-1/2 — home alone while she took a walk for about an hour early Friday morning, police said.
But when officers responded to a 911 call of a 4-year-old boy walking around outside with no shirt or shoes on around 2:30 a.m. Friday, they learned from the child where he lived. The boy directed police to his house, where they found the other younger child, a toddler, inside the home unsupervised.
Then their mom returned home to find officers with her kids.
Officers arrested Doneashia Barfield, 27, and charged her with one count of child neglect with no bodily harm.
According to the arrest report, Barfield told Boynton Beach police “she was walking in the area as she had a lot on her mind.”
Police say Barfield told them she was going through a tough time after losing another child to a drive-by shooting in Riviera Beach in August that also killed the child’s father.
Barfield said she locked the door to walk along Southwest Eighth Street “in an effort to clear her head.”
According to the arrest report, she also told the police she had no intention of harming her two children but said “that she feels overwhelmed sometimes” and that the older boy knows how to unlock doors.
Police said the children were unharmed.
Barfield, who works as a dietary aide, according to the arrest report, was taken to Palm Beach County Jail on a bond of $3,000.
This story was originally published December 13, 2019 at 12:06 PM.
