Woman arrested for leaving small children alone for hours while she was at work

Staff report

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Jazmine Marie Everett, 24, was arrested yesterday after allegedly leaving her 3-year-old and 11-month-old home alone for five hours while she was at work.

At about 1:20 p.m. on November 26, a Department of Children and Families (DCF) investigator arrived at Everett’s apartment to conduct a follow-up visit and reportedly heard the 3-year-old crying from outside the apartment. The investigator phoned Everett and learned that she was at work at Target, so she called the police.

A Gainesville Police Department officer forced entry into the apartment and reportedly found both children inside alone, without food; the apartment was reportedly “unsanitary, hazardous and not stable for living conditions.” The 11-month-old’s diaper was soiled, and the DCF investigator reportedly told the officer that the diaper appeared to have been on the infant “for an extended period of time.”

Everett arrived at about 2 p.m., and post Miranda, she reportedly said she had called an upstairs neighbor and asked her to watch the children before she left for work; she admitted leaving the children alone and locking the door when she left for work at 9 a.m. and said her shift was scheduled to end at 6 p.m. She reportedly said she left two bottles of formula inside the infant’s playpen, but the officer reported that there were no bottles within reach of the infant and no formula was found in the apartment. Everett reportedly admitted that the infant had not eaten since she left that morning.

The upstairs neighbor reportedly said Everett had asked her sister to ask the neighbor if she could watch the children, but Everett was told she would not be able to do that. The neighbor said she had no idea the children were alone in the apartment. She also reportedly said that Everett had called her on her way back to the apartment and asked her to say she had been watching the children so Everett would not get in trouble.

Everett reportedly took a Lyft from work to the apartment, and the Lyft driver reportedly said Everett had sent her a message as soon as she arrived that said, “Can you hurry, but not hurry as the police are at my house because my kids are alone.” The driver said she overheard Everett on a phone conversation in which she was asking someone to cover for her and say they had been watching the children; the driver said Everett said on the phone that she has left her children alone before but has never been caught. She said Everett ended the call by saying, “Just tell them that you had to run upstairs to get diaper rash cream and had to lock the door so the children would not get out.”

The officer noted that a similar incident was reported earlier this year when the children were left home alone; at that time, their father, Brandon Alexander Reynolds, was arrested. In September, he entered a plea of nolo contendere to one count of child neglect, with the second charge dropped, and Judge James Colaw sentenced him to two years of probation and withheld adjudication of guilt. Special conditions of Reynolds’s probation include completing DCF’s case plan, completing a parenting class, and not leaving minor children unattended for any period of time.

Everett has been charged with two counts of child neglect without causing great bodily harm. She has one misdemeanor conviction for driving without a valid license; she has been released from the Alachua County Jail.

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.