By Shereen Siewert
A Wausau mother accused in November of repeatedly abusing her children and allowing her boyfriend to abuse their infant daughter is facing new charges after her unsupervised 3-year-old boy nearly jumped out a window.
Police say Kassandra Meloy’s 1-year-old daughter was also unsupervised in the home, where a lit candle was burning, feces, tools and screws littered a bedroom floor and a partially-burned marijuana cigarette was lying within reach of the boy. Three additional children were asleep in a bedroom at the home when police arrived just after 2 a.m. on Aug. 9, according to court documents.
Officers responded to the home, in the 600 block of McClellan Street, by a caller who reported seeing the boy hanging out of the window, which had a broken screen. The boy allegedly told the caller his 1-year-old sister was inside, that no parents were home and that he was planning to jump from the window.
When police arrived they persuaded the boy to come down from the window and answer the door. Inside they found the home in disarray, a strong odor of marijuana, beer cans strewn about the residence and a 1-year-old child with an extremely wet diaper and a severe case of diaper rash, according to court documents. Officers then called Child Protective Services to care for the children.
As police were investigating, a friend of Meloy came to the home who allegedly told officers that she and Meloy had been at a Schofield night club for about four hours and that Meloy asked her to return to the home to check on the children.
Meloy allegedly did not return home for several more hours. She now faces four counts of child neglect along with charges of possessing drug paraphernalia and bail jumping in a case filed Aug. 10 in Marathon County Circuit Court. She is being held on a cash bond.
Court records show Meloy was out on bond when she allegedly left her children home alone. In November, 30-year-old Meloy was charged with two counts of child abuse-intentionally causing harm, two counts of child abuse/failure to prevent bodily harm, and a single count of encouraging a probation or parole violation.
Court records detail the investigation, which launched Nov. 11 in relation to a truancy case. In interviews, an 11-year-old child allegedly told investigators he was truant from school because he was staying home to prevent his mother’s boyfriend, Elton Carter, from shaking his infant sister.
Two of Meloy’s children said they were repeatedly beaten by Carter with hands and a belt. The children said they “get hit every day,” according to police reports. In addition, one of the children told investigators Meloy uses a spoon to beat the children and directed one of the children to beat the other with the spoon, according to court documents. One of the children said he regularly gets a “whooping” on his back, buttocks and forehead and is having nightmares that frighten him.
Court filings state that Elton Carter is on probation stemming from an earlier abuse charge in which Meloy was the victim. Carter’s rules of probation prohibit him from being at Meloy’s home or having contact with her two other children, and contact with Meloy was restricted to an 8-hour period during daytime hours. But police say Carter was secretly staying at Meloy’s home for months.
Social workers removed the children from Meloy’s care. She was arrested after a temporary physical custody hearing at the Marathon County Courthouse based on the children’s statements and suspicious bruising discovered on the children, court documents state. The children were taken for a medical examination.
Unclear is when Meloy resumed caring for her children.
As of Tuesday, Aug. 11, Meloy remained behind bars. A preliminary hearing, where a judge determines if prosecutors have enough evidence to move forward with the case, is set for Aug. 18.
