NANTICOKE, Pa. -- A mother and grandmother are locked up in Luzerne County, accused of neglecting a 2-year-old child.
Nanticoke police say the boy's mother, Tatiana Moore, 20, and grandmother, Trisella Hubbard, 42, are facing charges of child endangerment after the child was found alone on a busy street twice in two months.
Moore and Hubbard are accused of neglecting the 2-year-old child in their care.
Police say the child got out of their house at 200 West Main Street in Nanticoke twice in two months.
Police say Moore is the child's mother. Hubbard is the grandmother.
Neighbors say they haven't lived there long.
“It seemed like about a year or so, I think, the people in that front house because for a while there wasn't anybody there,” said neighbor Ed Greenleaf.
According to Nanticoke police, a passerby called police on April 17 after finding the 2-year-old boy alone, wearing a diaper, on the curb of West Main Street and Slope Street around 1:30 in the afternoon.
Police say that intersection is busy that time of day.
“Quite busy, yeah. I mean there's traffic flying up and down this road all the time,” said Joseph Daniel. “My kid, my daughter's 12, and I don't even like her going out.”
“It's always got traffic going back and forth,” said Greenleaf. “Yeah, the child could have been hit and killed or something or hurt badly.”
Luzerne County Children and Youth spoke with the women. They said they didn't realize the child had gotten out of the house. It was arranged that the grandmother would be responsible for the child.
Then on May 16, police were called again just before 11 a.m. when a driver saw the child in the middle of the road, telling officers she almost hit the boy. She told police the child was only wearing a diaper, and it was raining.
Court papers show that police were called back to the house later that day on May 16 for a report that the 2-year-old was hanging out of a second-floor window.
Police say when they arrived around 2:45 p.m., they found Children and Youth workers at the home.
Children and Youth took the child, and the women were charged with child endangerment.
Moore and Hubbard are locked up at the Luzerne County jail on $75,000 bail.