A mother and grandmother of two young children have been arrested after they were discovered unsupervised and locked in a dark shed next to a highway, authorities said.
Tamara Stoiber, 37, and Sabine Thrift, 59, have each been charged with two counts of child neglect, with Stoiber also facing two counts of false imprisonment, according to court documents. Both are in the custody of the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office in Florida.
Early Saturday morning, around 3 a.m., a “concerned citizen” called a sheriff’s deputy and reported that two children had been abandoned in Waldo, a small town northeast of Gainesville. Deputies arrived at the 13500 block of Northeast U.S. Highway 301 and spoke with two witnesses who discovered the children, both 5-year-old girls, locked in a shed.
Witnesses told law enforcement that the children were locked inside the structure with a brick against the door, “apparently to prevent them from leaving,” according to a sheriff’s office social media post. There was no electricity or running water inside, and a large knife was placed on top of one of the girls’ backpacks, “and could have been a hazard if the knife would have fallen or been knocked over while the children were sleeping,” according to Stoiber’s arrest report.
Furthermore, the girls “had been left without food or any way to call for help.”
The children were not seriously injured, but deputies described both girls as malnourished, disheveled, and dirty, according to Orlando Fox affiliate WOFL.
“I want you to also keep in mind that these young girls are probably extremely scared, frightened, it’s dark, it’s very early between midnight and 3 to 3.30 in the morning,” Alachua County Sheriff’s Office Captain and Public Information Officer Chris Sims told the outlet. “There is no lights on the outside of this shed either.”
He also mentioned that the shed is only about 100 feet from Highway 301.
“So, Heaven forbid these young girls walk out of the shed looking for help, they would unfortunately probably wander into a major highway and, and, you know, catastrophic results would probably take place,” according to Sims.
According to the sheriff’s office, Stoiber, the girls’ mother, claimed she “stepped away for a quick errand” and left the children in Thrift’s care. However, law enforcement said Stoiber was gone for several hours and Thrift, the girls’ grandmother, “allegedly refused to supervise them.”
According to Stoiber’s arrest report, Thrift stated that she remained at the shed for about two hours after Stoiber left. However, she then left in search of Stoiber because “she did not want to babysit the children” — a two-hour journey. Within this time frame, deputies were summoned to the shed.
Thrift eventually found Stoiber and told her that she was “not a babysitter” and that Stoiber “needed to learn her lesson,” according to Thrift’s arrest report.
According to the arrest report, the witnesses who called the sheriff’s office described how, earlier the next day, Stoiber arrived at their home “soaking wet” with the two girls, claiming to have walked 14 miles from Gainesville to Waldo. Stoiber reportedly ate the entire “footlong sandwich” that one of the witnesses gave them without sharing it with the girls. After allegedly locking the girls in the shed, she left to go shopping with her boyfriend.
It’s unclear whether Thrift is Stoiber’s mother.
“The safety and well-being of children remains a top priority for our agency,” the sheriff’s office stated. “We are committed to protecting children from neglect and abuse, and we urge the community to report any concerns about child welfare. Together, we can ensure that every child has a safe place to grow and thrive.”
