Monitor Editor
LAKE BUTLER— Union Deputies arrested Mallory Brianne Tetstone, 33, of Lake Butler on June 8 for child neglect after a dump truck driver found her daughter alone near State Road 121 north of Worthington Springs.
Arresting officer Shelby Ellis wrote in an arrest report that the driver pulled over because he did not see an adult near the child, then took the youngster to the owner of a nearby RV park because the driver knew the owner of the park.
Ellis added that when she arrived on scene at the RV park north of the town, the child was “barefoot, dirty, (had) nappy hair and was wearing only a t-shirt and a pull up and had a blanket wrapped around her.”
“I asked (the child) how she got to the RV Park and she said, ‘Mommy dropped me off,’” wrote Ellis in the report. “I asked (the child) if (her) mother said anything when she dropped her off and she said: ‘She said she would be back.’”
The deputy added that while she had the child in the parking lot of Sardis Baptist Church, several of the mother’s family members arrived to help find the mother and to care for the child.
Ellis added that after passing the church twice, Tetstone pulled into the parking lot.
“Mallory pulled into the parking lot and rolled down her window and in a nonchalant manner asked, ‘Has anyone seen (the child)?’” Ellis wrote in the arrest report. “I asked her if she knew where (the child) was and she said no, I’ve been sleeping. When I explained to her that her child was safe and that I picked her up off the side of 121 she did not seem at all relieved like any loving mother should have. Mallory made several spontaneous utterances that she didn’t do anything and that (another individual) was supposed to be watching (the child).”
