FLAGLER COUNTY, Fla. — A two-week long investigation ended with three arrests after Flagler County deputies said the three people kept young children in “deplorable conditions,” according to a news release.
Lynn Kulka, Michael Choate and Rene Marchetta face charges of child neglect after they allegedly kept three children—aged 4, 1, and 4 months old—in a home on Brelyn Place that was “infested with bugs,” deputies said.
The children were covered in bug bites, according to an arrest report.
The investigation began when the 4-month-old was taken to Florida Hospital Flagler with several insect bites and bone fractures.
Deputies went to the home a found it “infested with bugs, so severely that hundreds of cockroaches were seen crawling on the floors, walls, ceilings, cabinets and on all of the furniture including the children’s mattresses, playpens and bassinet,” according to a new release.
Deputies said they also discovered the home did not have a working air conditioner.
When deputies asked Kulka why she had chosen not to try to get the AC fixed, she said she did not want the landlord to discover the conditions inside the home, according to the sheriff’s office.
“This is a traumatic situation for all of the children involved,” Sheriff Rick Staly said in a release. “The children who were living in this house were subjected to deplorable living conditions. I’m very proud of the hard work our investigators did to put this case together and thankful that the children are now safe from these three individuals who obviously don't know how to be parents or properly care for children.”
Cox Media Group
