Two local parents have been arrested and charged with child abandonment after a 6-year-old girl and her dog were found wandering in Deltona.
On Apr. 4, around 4:35 p.m., deputies from the Volusia Sheriff's Office were called to a home near Vann Park in Deltona, where they found a 6-yearold girl and a small black dog without her parents.
A local woman told deputies that she had found the young girl and dog wandering around her front yard. When she had asked the girl what she was doing, the girl said she would leave, but the woman later found the girl on a chair in her carport, complaining that she was “hot and thirsty.” Reports from the Volusia Sheriff's Office state that witnesses first reported seeing the girl playing in Vann Park around 4 p.m. that afternoon.
The woman and a neighbor were able to provide the girl with food, water, and clean clothes, since the ones she was wearing were soiled. Aside from the small dog tied to her dress, the girl was found with a small backpack containing a blanket, a marker, a Medicaid card, and a toilet bowl cleaner used as a brush.
The Sheriff's Office has confirmed that the girl was not left with money or any means of communication, and that neither the girl nor the dog were left with any food or water, despite it being around 90 degrees Fahrenheit by the time deputies arrived on scene.
When asked what had happened to her parents, the young girl told deputies that her parents had driven her to Vann Park that morning, dropped her off, told her that “Mommy and Daddy needed to go charge their cell phones”, and left. The girl was unable to provide deputies with a home address, but said that it was not close by and that she didn't live in Deltona. She reportedly described her home as one that “leaks when it rains”, and was unsure about the school she attends.
Using the Medicaid card found with the girl, deputies were able to identify DeLand residents Pitrez Floyd, 29, and Aquania Estes, 27. The young girl was able to confirm they were her parents, and also said that she did not want to go back to them.
Instead, she was transported to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office Family Resource Center, where she was turned over to her grandmother. The grandmother told deputies that she had offered to take the girl from Floyd and Estes, who were transient, and while they had initially agreed to the arrangement, they had decided to abandon the girl instead. Additionally, deputies report that neither Floyd nor Estes possess a valid Florida driver's license, despite the young girl confirming that they had driven her to the park that morning.
Both Estes and Floyd have been charged with felony neglect and the unlawful abandonment of a child, along with animal abandonment on behalf of the dog, which has since been turned over to Deltona Animal Control. They currently face a bond of $51,000 each and are scheduled to appear in court in the coming weeks.
