You may remember Pamela Wood's Baltimore Sun story from last winter about a liveaboard family living in squalid conditions on a 28-foot sailboat, trapped in ice on Cypress Creek off the Magothy, with two dogs. There was no heat and no running water onboard. The family was urinating into plastic bottles, and the children had not been to school since the previous year.
These conditions led police to charge the couple with neglect, child abuse, and failing to send their boys to school. Further investigation by the county's Child Protective Services caused all charges to be dropped.
"Criminal neglect must be an intentional withholding of food, water, shelter, supervision and heat — and the children had all that," said State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess.
The couple was also charged with failing to send their boys to school. They both served about six weeks at the Jennifer Road Detention Center and were released at the end of March. Charges of failing to send their children to school were also dropped. The Kellys, by the time of their release, had already served for a period equal to convictions on those charges, Leitess said.
