A 43-year-old Louisiana mother was arrested on Sunday after she dropped her 8-year-old son off at a Ponchatoula laundry mat and drove 60 miles away to another town across Lake Ponchartrain on the opposite side of New Orleans.
Detectives soon learned that it wasn’t the first time that day Jeannette Edmonds had tried to dump her son, the Ponchatoula Police Department said.
Officers were called shortly after 2 p.m. on Sunday by a citizen who reported seeing a woman abandon the hcild at the laundry mat and then drive away.
Edmonds was eventually located in Harvey, where she was taken into custody by Jefferson Parish deputies.
Ponchatoula Police Chief Bry Layrisson told the Louisiana Radio Network that the boy was at the police satation “for quite some time” before investigators found his father, who came and picked him up. And when they found Edmonds, he said, she showed no concern for the boy’s well-being.
“She never acknowledged any reason for why she abandoned the child, and at no time did she ask the detectives if her son was okay,” Layrisson said.
Earlier in the day, the sheriff said, Edmonds had twice tried to abandon the boy.
“She brought him to a local cemetery, where she tried to abandon him, and he was able to get back in the vehicle; and then she also brought him to a local farm, and the same thing occurred,” Layrisson said.
Edmonds has been charged with cruelty to juveniles, child desertion, and criminal abandonment.
Law&Crime said Edmonds was being held without bond, but she was no longer listed in jail records as of Wednesday evening.
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[Featured image: Jeannette Edmonds/Ponchatoula Police Department]