Gainesville woman arrested for leaving disabled 5-year-old alone while she went to Jacksonville

Staff report

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Priscilla Aqucila Ealy, 32, was arrested yesterday after a neighbor reported that her disabled five-year-old child had been hanging out of a window and screaming for 45 minutes.

At about 4 p.m. on June 5, Alachua County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to an apartment complex off Tower Road, where a caller said a child was hanging out of a second-story window and had been screaming for about 45 minutes. The caller also said the vehicles that are typically parked outside the apartment were not there.

When deputies arrived, a child was seen climbing on the sill of an open second-story window, and attempts to communicate with the child were unsuccessful because he appeared to be non-verbal. Deputies made multiple attempts to call the residents of the apartment, but there was no answer.

Employees in the management office identified Ealy as the occupant of the apartment, opened the door, and made announcements for her to come to the door, but there was no response. When employees entered the apartment, they reportedly found the child alone, wearing a diaper soaked with urine.

Deputies finally reached Ealy by phone, and she said she was driving an Uber in Jacksonville. She reportedly said she had left her child with a babysitter named Tracy, but she later called the babysitter “Sabrina.” When she was asked about this, she reportedly said the babysitter goes by “Tracy” but is named Sabrina.

Ealy reportedly provided a phone number for Tracy and later provided a slightly different phone number, but deputies were unable to find any Tracy or Sabrina associated with those numbers, and nobody answered when the numbers were called several times.

Ealy reportedly said she had left the child with the babysitter between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. and had left at that time to go to Jacksonville, but a deputy reported that her car was seen on traffic cameras driving northbound on Tower Road at 12:04 p.m. and then in Lawtey at 1:30 p.m.

Ealy returned to the apartment after deputies spoke with her and arrived at about 6:15 p.m. She reportedly said she had met Tracy/Sabrina while working in the “Hub” food court at the University of Florida in March 2025, and Tracy/Sabrina was a student and customer at the time. She said Tracy claimed to be a babysitter for children with disabilities and had first watched her child on June 2. Ealy was reportedly unable to provide any messages or phone records that showed her communications with Tracy/Sabrina but showed the deputy a contact with the name “Tracy Sabrina” in her phone. She described Tracy as a white female around 20 or 21 years of age, with blond hair and brown eyes; she said Tracy does not drive to her apartment and is usually dropped off.

The deputy reported that Ealy was “extremely emotional” and said it’s difficult to find someone to care for her child; when the deputy asked if, given her child’s age and disabilities, it was reasonable to leave the child with someone she barely knows and has had little communication with, she reportedly “took full accountability and acknowledged the severity of the situation” but continued to insist that she had left the child with a babysitter between noon and 1 p.m. while she went to drive an Uber in Jacksonville.

Ealy has been charged with child neglect without great bodily harm. She has no local criminal history and Judge Denise Ferrero ordered her released on her own recognizance.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.