A Florida mother accused of leaving her four children home alone to go on a work trip to Las Vegas refused to come home even when cops called her to tell her her youngest child had been taken to the hospital, police said.
Irene Miller, 50, was arrested Friday at Orlando International Airport on charges of child neglect after allegedly leaving her children, ages 9, 11, 12 and 14, home alone in her Kissimmee apartment, according to the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office.
Officers informed Miller last Wednesday that her 9-year-old son had been rushed to the hospital with a laceration to his head after his older sister called 911 to report that a dumbbell had fallen on him, police said.
Miller, a Russian-born photographer, said she was in Vegas until Friday and “couldn’t go home,” Capt. Kim Montes of the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office told the Daily Mail.
Authorities then contacted the children’s father, Mark Miller, 53, who did not know his estranged wife had left them unattended, she said.
The “delighted” children were released into their father’s care, Montes added.
Mark Miller was charged with criminal battery against his wife Irene earlier this year.
The dumbbell accident happened while the four children were trying to build a blanket fort, using the dumbbell to secure it, an unidentified family friend told the Daily Mail.
There was “a lot of blood,” the friend added, calling the situation “chaotic” for Mark, who has no contact with his wife.
The couple is divorcing after 15 years of marriage.
They cohabited in the Kissimmee apartment until August, when Miller accused her husband of abuse, an allegation he denies, the captain said.
Mark was taken into custody Aug. 21 after allegedly hitting his wife outside their children’s school, according to a charging affidavit.
He was later arrested, charged and released on $10,000 bail, according to court records.
A judge issued a no-contact order after the Sept. 4 assault allegation, but the Department of Children and Family Services determined Mark could safely take his children, Montes said.
The four children now live with their father in a one-room motel after he became their “unexpected sole caregiver,” Mark revealed in a GoFundMe seeking $5,000 to support his children.
The Ukraine-born father of four “does everything I can to keep my children safe and together,” he wrote, adding that he doesn’t believe his ex-wife is “a bad person” but rather “made choices she didn’t really think through.”
Miller is still living in the family apartment after filing for dissolution of marriage in Osceola County on Sept. 17, according to court records.
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