A mom in Westlake could go to jail after cops found out she left her kids home alone for almost three days while she went to Florida and watched them from afar with security cameras.
Domonique Knowles, 32, put her kids in danger when she left them home alone and without a phone, according to a judge. The mom would use FaceTime on her laptop to check in on them or watch them from the security cams in the house.
In Westlake, cops might not have known that a fourth-grader and her two special needs 7-year-old twin sisters were home alone unless a worried teacher asked for a welfare check.
“She told her teacher that she talked to her mom on camera last night and that their mom ordered Uber Eats and left it at the door,” the teacher told cops over the phone.
The police said the flat was dirty and there was water on the floor everywhere. One of the twin girls slipped and fell while the police were there.
Michael Maloney, Westlake’s prosecutor, was terrible when he got the case.
“Mom did not really check in.” Maloney said, “I am not sure I would have been happy with that. Working from home is one thing, being a mom is another, but mom was not even checking in.” “That was clear from the girls.”
The cops finally found the grandmother. Says Knowles never told her mom she was going out of state and left the kids alone.
Aloney said, “It was worse.” “Mom told her mother lies.” There were adults around who could help out.
She said that Knowles only brought her 8-month-old son to Florida and left her other three children at home.
Knowles said she had not left the state, but cops found proof that she had been in Miami for two nights.
It was a lie, Maloney said. We have pretty good technology and detectives who are pretty well trained, so the detective picked it up pretty fast.
They recorded her leaving Hopkins Airport on the night in question and timed the calls to show mom at an airport in Miami in about two hours, which is about the time it takes to fly from Cleveland to Miami.
When mom was told this, she changed her story and said she had to be in Miami because a friend needed liposuction…
Knowles was caught and charged with putting a child in danger.
“My kids can be here by themselves,” Knowles told Westlake cops on video from her body camera.
“Not when you have two kids with special needs,” the cop who arrested them said.
Maloney said, “There was a patio door that was not locked when the police were there.” “Every teacher and counselor at the school said these girls would have gone off on their own if they had the chance.
I do not want to talk about what could have happened then—a kidnapping, going out behind a car, etc.”
Knowles was found guilty of putting children in danger earlier this month. She could go to jail for up to six months after her sentence on Wednesday.