Rob Fox
A couple living in Blue Springs, Missouri have been arrested and charged with felony abuse or neglect of a child after the pair were found to have all but abandoned their 12-year-old child with cerebral palsy.
Videos by Rare
The 30-year-old mother, Janine Allen, and the 29-year-old father, Brendon Luke, allegedly left the boy in a home the couple had moved out of for weeks, only coming back around to bring him food and otherwise monitoring him on a video system from their new home a couple of miles away.
Authorities discovered that the boy was by himself after concerned neighbors reported that they believed the child had been left alone in the house for weeks.
On one home surveillance video obtained by police the boy can be heard saying, “I want out. I don’t like this, mommy.” Allen allegedly told people that the reason the couple was keeping their son locked up in their old house is because she did not want him to damage the walls of their new residence. A Children’s Division worker that had been working with the family since October did report that their child had become more and more violent toward the other members of the family. Allen claimed that the boy had been left alone in the house since Mother’s Day and that leaving him alone was the best way to protect the family from violence.
Allen also claimed to police that the child was never in any danger because he knew to call 911 should anything bad (other than being abandoned) happen.
Investigators, however, claim to have found a phone with no dial tone, as well as feces in the home. They also said the house smelled of urine.
Jackson County Family Court obtained emergency custody of the boy. The parents are both being held on $250,000 bond.
