A Florida mother left her 3-year-old daughter on a sidewalk and hit up a nightclub for almost two hours, authorities said. The child was found sleeping on the sidewalk and deputies also discovered that the mother had left two other kids alone at home.
The 25-year-old mother, Shyla Heidelberg, was arrested on Saturday after her youngest child was found wrapped in a blanket around 1 a.m. while asleep on a sidewalk outside an apartment complex in Fort Walton Beach, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.
Responding officers then found Heidelberg’s two other children asleep and alone inside an apartment, where a security guard at the complex had initially spotted the 3-year-old outside, according to WKRG.
Officers waited until Heidelberg returned home. She told deputies that she had “gone out to a nightclub” about 90 minutes earlier and left her children behind to look after themselves, authorities said.
Heidelberg was arrested and charged with three counts of child neglect without great bodily harm. According to jail records, she was released from custody on Sunday. However, Heidelberg told reporters on Monday morning that she didn’t tell deputies she went to a nightclub.
“It wasn’t true,” she told a New York Post reporter during a brief interview. “I have proof that I wasn’t in the club.”
Moreover, Heidelberg said she has footage from her Ring doorbell camera that proves she didn’t leave her children to go to the club. In addition, she said she has a few witnesses who will vouch for her whereabouts.
“A couple people can state that I wasn’t there,” Heidelberg insisted.
