Content warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of child abuse. Please take care while reading.
Reese Louise Myers of Killeen, TX, was arrested on charges stemming from an incident last summer when police discovered her 16-month-old child alone in her apartment.
According to Texas news outlet KSAT, Myers, 25, said she left the boy with a babysitter for a date with a man she met on dating app Hinge. The date was to take place in San Antonio, more than 150 miles from where she lived. Since this incident in July, Myers fled Texas and was arrested Nov. 5 in California.
According to Myers’ arrest affidavit, on July 28, Killeen police found her son with his head and shoulders “protruding” from a broken window in Myers’ apartment, as an aggressive dog inside attacked neighbors attempting to help rescue him.
The glass in the window was not shattered, police said, but had been repaired with cardboard and plexiglass, which the toddler had somehow broken through.
Once inside the apartment, police reported the boy was only wearing a t-shirt, and no diaper. According to Killeen police, there was “feces on the child’s skin and signs of possible diaper rash.”
Fox 44 News says Myers had tried to baby-proof her apartment. The doors and other windows were locked, and a baby gate blocked the kitchen area. Multiple reports say two protective dogs were with the boy in the home.
Myers told police she contacted a babysitter
With the boy safely in the custody of Child Protective Services, Killeen police tracked down Myers’ phone number. Once contacted, she told them about the Hinge date, that she left for San Antonio about 24 hours earlier, and that she had arranged for a babysitter to stay with her son. Police spoke with the babysitter, however, and she said they had not heard from Myers for several months.
KWTX reports that a woman told Killeen police she used to live with Myers, and that Myers often left the baby alone overnight, saying he’d be asleep. Myers’ former roommate also said she witnessed other forms of neglect.
Social media comments on Myers’ story speculated that the aggressive dog was likely trying to protect the child. ” … [T]he dog was probably wanting to pull the child back inside from out of the window. This is truly sad,” one comment said.
Another added, “The dog was more of a mother to the toddler than his human mother. Dog wasn’t aggressive but was protecting the toddler. Doing what he was supposed to do.”
Myers was arrested at Fort Irwin Army Base in Southern California, near Barstow, and extradited to Texas where she was held on a $25,000 bond. She faces child abandonment and endangerment charges, and has not yet entered a plea. It’s unclear why Myers went to California, or when she will make her first court appearance.
The Myers case is just one of two shocking child endangerment stories to emerge from Texas in recent months. About a month before Myers’ arrest, 38-year-old Gloria Williams pleaded guilty to leaving three of her children alone in an apartment near Houston with the decomposing body of their sibling, who was killed by Williams’ partner.
If you are experiencing domestic abuse, or if you believe someone you know is being abused, contact The National Domestic Violence Hotline. The hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-SAFE or spoken with online via the hotline’s website. Mobile phone owners can also text “START” to the number 88788