Michigan Mom Pleads Guilty to Abandoning Kids Found Eating Raw Meat in Filthy Flint Home

Krystal Farmer, 27, pleaded guilty to seven counts including child abandonment and abuse after her two toddlers were found alone in squalid conditions. She reserved the right to withdraw her plea depending on sentencing.

Flint Mother Enters Guilty Plea After Children Found Alone in Squalid Home

A 27-year-old Michigan woman pleaded guilty Monday to seven criminal counts — including child abandonment and child abuse — after her two young sons were discovered alone in a filthy Flint home, Law & Crime reports.

Krystal Farmer faced two counts of child abandonment, four counts of child abuse, and one count of lying to police. The charges stem from a February welfare check at her home, during which Flint Police Department officers found her two boys — aged 3 and 4, both with special needs — left entirely on their own.

Body camera footage released by the department showed the floor blanketed in trash so thick that officers said they "couldn't take a normal step." Human waste was smeared across the walls, a faucet had been left running and was overflowing onto the floor, and one of the boys was found eating "raw, spoiled meat." The other child was hiding on a bedroom floor. Police described the residence as a house "reduced to survival conditions."

Farmer entered her guilty plea to all seven counts but, according to local ABC affiliate WJRT, retained the right to withdraw it if she disagrees with the sentence. WJRT reported that she requested a Cobbs evaluation — a procedure based on People v. Cobbs — which allows defendants to receive an estimated sentence range before formally committing to a guilty or no-contest plea.

A neighbor called 911 on Feb. 18 after growing concerned about the children's welfare. Local CBS affiliate WNEM spoke to resident Christy Ogles-Campbell, who said she had suspected something was wrong at the home "at least since September." Upon learning of the conditions inside, she told the station: "I never ever could have imagined that that was actually what was going on in that house."

Investigators said Farmer lied when questioned by police, but officers dismantled her account and concluded she had left the two boys alone in the home for several days.

Flint police acknowledged in a Facebook post that the boys were "now safe" because one neighbor "spoke up."

Farmer is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 19.

Source: Law & Crime