Criminal Charges For Leaving Children Unattended

Parenting is a struggle, especially in the summer. Not taking care of your children simply because you do not feel like it is not an option, even when the desire to go into standby mode and scroll aimlessly through your phone. The inability to afford childcare weighs heavily on the parents of many young children. Having relatives nearby certainly helps, but what happens when all the family members are already stretched to the limit? Asking others to help you take care of your children when you need help is the right thing to do, but you are still responsible for ensuring that they are safe under the other person’s care. Caregivers who do not provide adequate supervision for the children under their care can face criminal charges for child endangerment and related offenses; in some cases, so can the parents who knowingly left the children with the negligent caregivers. If you are facing criminal charges for failing to provide adequate supervision for a child, contact a Tampa criminal defense lawyer.

Mother and Grandmother Face Criminal Charges for Leaving 5-Year-Old Twins Alone in Shed

One day in the summer of 2025, Tamara Stoiber arrived unannounced at the house of her mother Sabine Thrift in Alachua County. She told Thrift that she needed to run errands and asked Thrift to watch the children while she was out. Stoiber left so quickly that Thrift did not have a chance to refuse.

After midnight that night, Thrift’s neighbors called the police and said that they believed that children were locked in a shed on Thrift’s property. When the police arrived, the two girls were inside the shed, and a brick was blocking the door from the outside. The shed did not have running water or electricity, and there was no food inside, but there was a knife. Police arrested both Stoiber and Thrift and took them to the Alachua County jail. They are facing charges for child neglect and false imprisonment.

Thrift’s bond was set at $20,000, while Stoiber’s bond amount was $70,000. Several weeks after the women’s arrests, news reports have not said whether either of the defendants have posted bond. Presumably, the court placed the children in the care of other relatives or a foster family. The news reports also did not indicate why it set different bond amounts for each defendant. The court sets bond amounts on a case-by-case basis. It might have had to do with Stoiber’s status as the children’s legal parent; a legal parent is a child’s genetic parent, or else a parent who has legally adopted the child or a father who has signed a voluntary declaration of paternity with the court. If either of the defendants has a prior criminal history, this could also be a factor in the bond amounts.

Contact Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Bryant Scriven

A criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing criminal charges for failure to provide adequate supervision for your own children or for children that you are supervising.  Contact Scriven Law in Tampa, Florida to schedule a consultation.

Sources:

people.com/women-arrested-twin-daughters-trapped-alone-shed-11765738

live5news.com/2025/07/02/mother-grandmother-charged-after-5-year-old-twins-found-locked-shed/