Wisconsin Mom Leaves 3 Children Alone in Freezing Car, Says Her Mom Did It Too
Two infants and a toddler were left in frigid temps while the woman bargain-shopped at Kmart.
Police arrested a mother of three in South Milwaukee earlier in November for leaving two infants and a six-year old in a car while she went shopping at Kmart. In addition to being alone, the children were also found to be left in poor conditions including near-freezing weather.
Two women noticed the three kids—aged six-months, 17-months, and six-years-old—alone in the Cudahy Kmart parking lot, and called the police to the scene on Nov. 16. When the police responded, 26-year-old mother Ashely Pirlot explained that her mother had done the same to her as a child (and was subsequently arrested), but the poor example set for her did not get her out of trouble, and Pirlot was arrested on the scene. She now faces two felony counts and a misdemeanor over the incident.
Accuweather shows that the Cudahy, Wisconsin area had a high temperature of 40 degrees and low of 30 degrees on the day of the incident—but it all gets worse from there. The conditions the children were found in are unnerving, at best. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the criminal complaint paints a picture of what the children were experiencing inside the car.
The 17-month-old was wearing a partially unzipped pajama onesie in her booster seat while the six-month-old was in an infant carrier with her bare feet sticking out from under a blanket. There was reportedly a plastic bag within reach, and police also noted the babies’ diapers were dirty. The six-year-old girl, who had just had her birthday the day before and was left in charge of the two babies, told officers that she was hungry and hadn’t eaten anything in a while.
When the police questioned Pirlot on the scene, she said she was only in the store for seven to eight minutes, but surveillance footage showed that she was actually in the store for about 17 minutes before police arrived and had her paged inside the store. She also explained that the six-year-old was in charge of the younger girls, and she didn’t want to deal with the hassle of shopping with three kids since the buggies don’t have enough seating.
While Wisconsin doesn’t have any laws on the books which specifically address leaving children in cars, of a very young age or otherwise, laws against neglect would appear to have been what prompted the charges.
