Crime & Safety

Lost 3-Year-Old Girl Asks Cops for a Beer

Lubbock police tracked down her mom and found an apartment any child would be eager to escape from. Mom now faces neglect charges.

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LUBBOCK, TEXAS — When police found a lost, dirty, barefoot toddler wandering around a Texas apartment complex, the frustrated and weary child was ready for just one thing.

“I need a beer,” she told the Lubbock cops.

When officers found her mother, Shauna Lee Bennett, they discovered a squalid apartment with cockroaches climbing the walls and moldy dishes in the sink. Bennett, 42, was asleep when the cops found her, and reportedly told the officer she had no idea where her child was.

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“This was a clear neglect on the mother’s part,” Lubbock Police Department Lt. Ray Mendoza told KJTV. “The mom was completely oblivious to where the child had been ...”

Bennett’s child, who also told the cops she was hungry, has been placed with Child Protective Services. Mom is charged with abandoning and endangering a child. Police said the girl looked as if she hadn’t been bathed in a long while. Her skin was covered in red, blistery bed-bug bites, according to police.

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The girl has gone wandering before. The apartment manager told police he’s returned the girl to her mother often, according to NBC affiliate WSFA.

Neighbor Keith Graves told reporters that he babysits the girl.

“[She] is very rambunctious and has a lot of energy and she knows how to get out of the apartment,” Graves said. “So she got out of the apartment and did what a 3 year old does, play around.”

And work up a troubling thirst.

Some Neighbors Defend Her

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