Parents charged after infant, toddler allegedly starved
A Hot Springs couple were arrested Thursday and their children taken into state custody after they allegedly malnourished their infant and toddler.
Jacob Anthony Long, 21, and Jenny Marie Long, 25, were taken into custody at 10 a.m. and each charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of a minor, punishable by up to six years in prison. They both remained in custody Friday in lieu of bonds totaling $20,000 and are set to appear Oct. 3 in Garland County District Court.
According to the affidavit, on Sept. 14, the juvenile siblings were seen in the Growth and Development Clinic at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. The 5-month-old was diagnosed with failure to thrive (severe malnutrition) and chronic bilateral subdural hematomas, which were “distributed over both sides of the brain, suggesting an event that would lead to a global type of bleeding.”
The 3-year-old was also diagnosed with failure to thrive and both were admitted to the hospital for further evaluation.
The affidavit said a doctor with the Team for Children at Risk at
ACH gave the following professional opinion: “Both children are not being properly nourished and cared for by their parents, as well as child physical abuse suspected on the 5-month-old.”
The two children were taken into state custody on the same date.
On Sept. 16, the Garland County Sheriff’s Department received a report from the Arkansas Child Abuse Hotline in reference to the 5-month-old male for nutritional neglect and physical abuse and his 3-year-old male sibling, who also suffered from nutritional neglect while in the custody of their parents, it said.