Woman charged with felony child neglect
Apr. 30—By GREG JORDAN
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
PRINCETON — A Mercer County woman was charged with felony child neglect after children were found with knives and drug paraphernalia within easy reach.
Angela Nicole Massaro, 37, of Princeton was charged with child neglect creating risk of serious bodily harm after an officer with the Princeton Police Department answered a call about children being left alone in a home.
Patrolman J.D. Shrewsbury said in his April 25 criminal complaint that he answered a call about two children that had not attended their elementary school for several days. Their school principal and a Child Protective Services worker visited the home and found that the home's heat "to be on full blast even though the outside temperature was in the high 50s low 60s range. The oven was on and open in the residence to add an additional heat source."
"I did not enter the home past the threshold of the residence but I observed several knives and a blow torch type lighter laying in the living room floor where the boys were located," Shrewsbury said. "CPS also advised me that there was drug paraphernalia in the bedroom in plain view and where the boys could have access."
Shrewsbury said that he was told the boys had been left unattended for around seven hours.
Massaro came to the Princeton Police Department and turned herself in, Shrewsbury said. She was later arraigned and remanded to the Southern Regional Jail on a $10,000 cash or surety bond.
According to the West Virginia Code, child neglect creating risk of injury carries a possible sentence of one to five years in prison.
— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com
Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com
