A woman was sentenced to probation and jail time after she left her toddlers home alone without food and electricity.
Kila Hill pleaded guilty to four charges of neglect of a dependent, Level 6 felonies. As part of the plea agreement, she was given an alternative misdemeanor sentence, according to court documents.
Circuit Court Judge Andrew Roesener accepted the plea agreement in November which specifies that Hill’s sentence is 30 days in jail and 335 days on probation for the June incident. She was given 15 days of jail credit, court documents said.
Hill must also take parenting classes as part of the agreement, according to court documents.
Hill and her husband, Richard Hill, were arrested in June after their teenage daughter told a friend’s mother she had not seen her parents for more than a week, prompting an investigation by the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office.
The teen told police she had not seen her parents and did not know where her three younger siblings, ages 3 to 8, were, or if they were being fed. The parents of the girl did not respond to multiple calls from police, a Johnson County Sheriff’s Office report said.
Police went to the family’s last known address on County Line Road in Greenwood, according to the sheriff’s office report.
A deputy arrived at the home on June 3 and found two young children, ages 5 and 3, home alone, court documents said.
The electricity to the home in the Center Grove Estates neighborhood had been off for a month, according to the sheriff’s office report.
The children walked outside when the deputy arrived and told him that they had been staying home alone.
The children told police they had not had anything to eat, and when the deputy offered to make them a sandwich, they said the meat in the home was rotten and that there was not anything to eat in the home, according to the police report. The 5-year-old told him the inside of the refrigerator was nasty, and warned him not to look in it, the report said.
The children told police they had stayed the night with a neighbor and had eaten at the neighbor’s house the day before, court documents said.
Piles of dirty clothes were all over the home, bologna was left out and was rotting, a mattress in the kitchen was dirty and stained, gnats and flies were flying around the home and the refrigerator smelled like rotten food, according to court documents.
A teenage neighbor told deputies she had watched the children the day before and the children were walking between the two homes because they were homesick.
The Department of Child Services took custody of the children.
Richard Hill, the toddlers’ father, was sentenced to 18 days in jail and 346 days of probation.
