Mother charged after 4 children found home alone in empty house

A Natrona Heights woman is in custody after police found her four children alone in an empty house with nothing but mattresses on the floor.

Police called to the Garfield Street home around 5:30 p.m. Friday found two young boys leaning out of an open second-story window frame after they’d pushed the window out, according to a criminal complaint. Officers could also hear an infant inside “screaming.”

Police tried to convince the boys to come downstairs and open the door, but officers ended up using a ladder to get into the house, according to the complaint.

The home was mostly empty, with bare mattresses on the floor in some rooms, according to the complaint. There was no food or refrigerator in the kitchen, and bathrooms were also empty.

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Officers discovered one room locked from the inside, and when they forced entry, they found the two boys hanging out the window, as well as another boy and a girl lying facedown on a mattress “showing no signs of life when we attempted to wake them,” according to the complaint.

The pair awakened when the officers made physical contact with them, and they saw the boy had bruises on his face and a swollen eye.

When officers asked the girl where their parents were, she said their mother had left to go to the store hours earlier, according to the complaint. All four children were taken to a hospital for treatment before Children, Youth and Family services took them into protective custody.

Neighbors told Channel 11 the girl is about 10 years old, and the boys are about 5, 3 and "a small baby."

Police were alerted that the mother, identified as Deondra Bundy, 30, returned to the home around 11 p.m. but fled when a neighbor approached her, according to the complaint.

Minutes later, police stopped a vehicle in which she was a passenger and arrested her.

She faces four felony charges of endangering the welfare of children and four misdemeanor charges of recklessly endangering another person.

Cox Media Group