Florida mom Irene Miller thought she was coming home to a regular Friday. Instead, she stepped off her flight in Orlando and walked straight into a set of handcuffs…
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The 50-year-old Kissimmee mother was hit with four counts of child neglect without great bodily harm after deputies say she left her kids to fend for themselves while she was out in Las Vegas.
Miller was booked into the Orange County Jail.
Deputies were originally called to the family’s home shortly after 8:30 p.m. on Oct. 21 after a child phoned 911 to say her 9-year-old brother had been hurt when a dumbbell fell on his head. When help pulled up, they found four children, ages 9, 11, 12 and 14, with no adult in the house. The little man was taken to Celebration Hospital and later released. Deputies got Miller on the phone, and she wasn’t in Kissimmee. She told them she was working in Las Vegas and planned to be back Oct. 23.
Investigators say she’d actually left on Oct. 18, so the kids had been without a parent under their roof for days.
Now, Miller’s side of this matters, because she says she didn’t just ghost her babies. She told deputies a babysitter drove in from Tampa each morning to get the kids ready for school and checked on them in the afternoon. But the sitter did not stay overnight. So from evening until sunrise, it was a 14-year-old holding it down for three younger siblings.
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The children’s father was contacted and took all four of them to his place while detectives worked out how to meet Miller when her plane touched down. Police arrested her as she deboarded on Friday. Sheriff Chris Blackmon said charges will be brought against the parents who are not properly supervising their kids.
Court dates and any statement from her side haven’t surfaced in the reports so far. For now, four kids are with their dad, a family is dealing with the fallout, and a Vegas work trip has turned into a legal mess.