Mother accused of leaving children home alone to go to Florida with boyfriend
‘Just eat candy,’ mother allegedly texts children left alone during November weekend
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A teacher has been accused of leaving her two children, both under the age of 12, home alone for two nights while she went to Florida with her boyfriend.
Kerry Lyn Caviasca, of Watertown, Connecticut, was arrested on 15 January and released on a $5,000 bond after being charged with two counts of risk of injury to a minor and two counts of reckless endangerment in the second degree.
She’s set to appear in court on 25 January, NBC Connecticut reported.
Ms Caviasca allegedly left her children home alone between 20 and 22 November last year. The children reportedly lived on candy, snacks, and food deliveries from UberEats, court documents state.
The teacher’s ex-husband went to the Watertown Police Department on 17 December to report that his wife might have left the kids alone in the home and that they didn’t go to school on Monday 22 November. Ms Caviasca has primary custody of the children.
The ex-husband told law enforcement that he had been unable to get in touch with the kids during that weekend. He added to police that he sent his father to the home to check on the kids, but that he wasn’t able to get ahold of them.
When the ex-husband later asked the children if they had been left on their own, they said they hadn’t, but he didn’t believe them, court documents state. When he looked through the texts on a phone he had given to one of the children, he discovered numerous messages between the child and Ms Caviasca.
One text exchange was about what the children were going to eat that night.
“Just eat candy,” Ms Caviasca wrote. “What ever (sic) is downstairs.”
“There’s so much downstairs,” she added. “I’ll make it up to you,” she wrote, according to court documents.
In another text to one of the children, Ms Caviasca asked that they delete the messaging app from their phone. She then asked if the old messages were still there after the application was put back on the device.
Police went to Ms Caviasca’s home after speaking to the father and asked her if the children had been left alone during that weekend in November. She claimed that while she had gone to Florida, the children had been taken care of by her brother.
Officers then said that the grandfather had tried to reach the children, allegedly prompting Ms Caviasca to admit that the children were left on their own.
One of the children told law enforcement on 18 December that the mother told them to stay in the basement of the home and not to go upstairs, which was why they didn’t answer the door.
The other child told officers on 24 December that they had been given snacks and that the UberEats app was used numerous times to order food to the residence. The child added that they didn’t go to school on Monday 22 November.
Court documents revealed that after police tried to contact Ms Caviasca, they got a call from a man saying he was her lawyer and that she wouldn’t speak to law enforcement.
When NBC Connecticut went to the home, there was no answer at the door.
Lawyer Joseph DeCicco told the local TV station that neither he nor Ms Caviasca would comment on the case at this time.
Ms Caviasca’s employer, Waterbury Public Schools, said in a statement that they have “been informed of a pending allegation regarding a Waterbury Public School staff member. The alleged actions do not represent the values of our district. The teacher has been placed on leave while the district conducts an investigation”.