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Police: Girl, 7, Home Alone While Mom Goes To Bar
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Published: July 25, 2008
Updated: 07/25/2008 06:36 pm
The little girl sobbed as she spoke with the 911 dispatcher early this morning.
It was just before 4 a.m.
"I need you to come to my home."
The dispatcher asked where she lived.
"I live in Tampa Bay."
"What's the problem?" the dispatcher asked
"I can't find my mommy."
How old are you?
"I am 7."
As the little girl explained that she was calling from her bedroom and that her mommy was the only other person who lived there, the dispatcher responded in a calm, soothing voice.
"Stay on the line," she said. "We are going to get someone out there to you."
The dispatcher asked if the little girl went out to the driveway to see if her mommy's car was still there.
"I didn't check. I am too scared."
It went on like this for nearly eight minutes.
The little girl trembling. The dispatcher keeping her from giving in to her fear.
"When we get someone out there," said the dispatcher, "I am going to have to ask you to be a big girl and go out and answer the door."
Plant City police arrived at the house at 3450 Silverstone Court at 3:50 a.m. They found the girl shaking, with no mother in sight.
According to an affidavit:
Police searched the home and could not find Season Cherisse Cardona, 26, the girl's mother.
When she finally came home, Cardona told police that she had been at Big Dog's Patio and then stopped at a gas station for a hot dog.
Cardona, listed in jail records as a scanner for Plant City Pediatrics, told police she had only been gone for an hour.
She was arrested and charged with child neglect. At 1:17 p.m., she released from the Orient Road Jail on $2,000 bail, according to jail records.
A MySpace page listed under Cardona's name is adorned with gangster poses, bikini pictures, poetry and this statement:
"OK, so sometimes i do really stupid things. … if i told u some of the things, u would think i was a complete retard. i ruin my own life on a regular basis. as soon as things start to get better, i find a way to bring em back down. i do things that hurt the people i care about the most, and then expect them to forgive me, when honestly i don't deserve it. i refuse to be happy and i always want what i can't or don't have."
Editor Howard Altman can be reached at (813) 259-7629 or haltman@tampatrib.com.
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