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YPD trying to figure out timeline in abandoned child case
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Police say they are still trying to figure out how long a woman who left a child at the police department had the child.
Officer James Rowley said the woman, who is a friend of the baby’s mother’s, Danesha Davis, 25, told officers she had the 18-month-old girl since Saturday and was tired of watching her, so she left her at the police department late Monday afternoon.
The child is in the custody of Mahoning County Children Services but Rowley, an investigator for the department’s Family Services Investigation Unit, said Children Services here is talking to workers at the Cuyahoga County Children Services to see if the child can be placed with relatives there.
Davis is from Cuyahoga County but she has been in the Mahoning County jail since Monday, where she was taken into custody on a fugitive-from-justice charge from Cuyahoga County.
Jail records show the underlying charge is driving under the influence, but there is no record in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court or Cleveland Municipal Court of Davis ever having a DUI in Cuyahoga County.
Common pleas court records from Cuyahoga County show Davis pleaded guilty to charges of prostitution and grand theft of a motor vehicle. In Cleveland Municipal Court, she had a 2010 conviction for drug-abuse marijuana and 2011 conviction for trespassing.
Rowley said investigators have yet to talk to Davis but are hoping to soon. Davis was in the jail before the child was left with police.
The woman who dropped the baby off at the police department was paid to watch her by the mother, Rowley said, but he said it is still unclear how long she was supposed to watch the baby.
Rowley said criminal charges are not expected against the woman. He said the child was clean, healthy and well fed when she was dropped off.
A spokesman for Children Services in Mahoning County said a relative got in touch after seeing media reports, which was how authorities were able to identify the child and her mother.
The agency is in the process of filing a case in Mahoning County Juvenile Court to obtain emergency custody of the child, the spokesman said.
Reporter Justin Weir contributed to this story.