poor little girl in nj :(.

Police: 13-year-old left alone for weeks in sweltering apartment
The Associated Press
Published: Wednesday, August 2, 2006
STANHOPE BOROUGH, N.J. (AP) - Police have arrested a Sussex County woman they say left her 13-year-old daughter alone for more than a month in a hot apartment with no electricity and limited food.

Stanhope Borough police arrested Lisa Sylvester, 27, on Monday and charged her with neglect and second-degree child endangerment. She was in Sussex County jail Wednesday in lieu of $52,500 bail.

Authorities said they found the girl hiding in her apartment on July 27 after the landlord told them he suspected abandonment. Electricity in the apartment had been shut off since mid-May, Stanhope Police Officer Ryan Hickman said.

The apartment's temperature was about 90 degrees and it stank of cat feces, he said. The door was unlocked but the girl had been instructed not to answer any knocks.

"The condition of the apartment was just deplorable," Hickman told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Wednesday's newspapers. "This girl was basically raising herself at 13 years old."

However, Hickman said the child showed no signs of malnutrition or ill health.

Sylvester, who works in an auto dealership in the Madison area about 25 miles away, apparently stopped by every few weeks to drop off money for food, which the girl would use to buy pizza, Hickman said. Sylvester denied to police that she had abandoned her daughter, saying that car trouble sometimes prevented her from returning home.

Landlord Ralph Stone said he was trying to evict Sylvester for not paying the rent, but did not realize the power to the unit had had been cut off.

The state Division of Youth and Family Services has taken custody of the girl, placing her temporarily with friends in the community. Sylvester could face up to 10 years in prison for the endangerment charge alone.

Stanhope is a community of almost 4,000 people located in northwestern New Jersey, about 30 miles from the Pennsylvania border.