Britnie Alaine Tester
Britnie Alaine Tester, 35, of 5006 Delaware Dr. in East Ridge, has been charged with child abuse, neglect or endangerment after her young child was found wandering the streets and living in deplorable conditions.
Officers responded to the 700 block of South Lovell Avenue Sunday at approximately 8:21 p.m. on Sunday on report of a child wandering the neighborhood without adult supervision, walking towards a heavily traveled road.
Officers began searching for the child and found a group of people standing in the road in the 5000 block of Delaware Drive. One person was holding a toddler they said they had found sitting on a porch at a house at 5006 Delaware Dr. eating cat litter. The person knocked on the door of the house, but no one answered the door.
Officers noticed two females in the yard of the home, both known to police as users of narcotics. When asked if they knew the child, one of the women said she did and that the child lived at the 5006 Delaware address, but she did not know where the parents were.
Upon further questioning, a man in the yard said the parents were in the house asleep. Officers asked the man to go inside and ask the parents to come out. The man went inside, but came out shortly, saying the parents were not in there. The man said he could not be sure if they were in there or not, that the house was filled with junk and was treacherous. Officers decided to search the home themselves due to the unusual statements about the condition of the home and known narcotics use.
Officers announced themselves at the home, and no one answered. Upon entry, they found the home stacked with large items against the walls, and with trash and junk items completely covering the floors, which made it difficult to maneuver. In the kitchen, they found moldy food and rat droppings on the stove. Several doors in the home were hard to open because items were stacked in the way. In a rear bedroom closet, officers found the parents asleep on a mattress. When they woke the parents, they jumped off the mattress and said, "Oh, the baby," and tried to exit the room.
Ms. Tester told police she had been asleep for approximately one hour before police awakened her. She said she last saw her son when he went to sleep with her and the man.
Officers asked her if she thought the house was suitable for a child to live in, and she replied "no." She said she and the child did not live there, but stayed there off and on.
The man told police the child was approximately two years old and lived there with him and Ms. Tester. He said the child was not his and he did not know where the child was. When asked if the house was fit for a child to live in, he replied, "No, sir." When asked about the child found eating cat litter, he said it was sand for sand blasting.
The child was observed to have rashes on his legs, scrapes on his face and legs, a large red mark covering the entirety of the right side of his face and what appeared to be bug bites on his upper torso.
Child Protective Services was notified in relation to the child.
Ms. Tester was placed in custody, transported to the East Ridge Police Department and then taken to the Hamilton County Jail.