Columbus father pleads not guilty to three counts of child cruelty

A father whose three children were found living in an Eagles Trace apartment overwhelmed with feces, urine, trash and bugs appeared in Columbus Recorder’s Thursday afternoon.

Hakeem Webster pleaded not guilty to three counts of second-degree cruelty to children. He was ordered bonds held in the Muscogee County Jail under bonds totaling $150,000, and his case was bound over to Superior Court.

Webster joins Crystal Grace Clark, his girlfriend and the mother of his three kids. She pleaded not guilty to the same charges in Columbus Recorder’s Court on Feb. 17.

Columbus Police said they responded to the 2001 Torch Hill Road apartment complex on Feb. 12 around 1:20 p.m. after a woman reported seeing the couple’s two sons and daughter, whose ages range from 2 to 4, playing in the street without any supervision.

The smallest child was only wearing a shirt, and none of the kids had “any shoes or bottoms on,” according to Detective Susan Shelton’s testimony.

Police went inside the couple’s home, where they found the woman naked on a twin mattress and the kids sitting in a pile of trash in front of the television. The mother had visible sores on her face, chest and arms, police noted.

"The children were covered in dirt and smelled like they hadn't had a bath in days," Shelton said Feb. 17.

Police said the kids, two of whom were injured, were transported to the Columbus Midtown Medical Center.

Shelton said the 2-year-old boy was treated for burn marks on his legs, bug bites on his body and a diaper rash, while his 4-year-old brother was treated for an ear infection. All three children were later released from the hospital and placed in their maternal grandparents’ care.

Officers said they further explored the apartment and found trash and bugs in each room, feces and urine smeared on the walls and floor and dirty diapers "everywhere."

"The two bedrooms were filled with dirty clothes and broken furniture," Shelton said. "The back bedroom window was broken out."

Clark told police that her children slept on the stained twin mattress police found lying on the living room floor covered in trash.

Police said they walked into the bathroom, where they saw feces sitting in a large white bucket between the bathtub and toilet. The toilet was overflowing with feces and trash, Shelton said.

"The smell in the apartment was so overbearing that we actually had to go outside and put masks on before we continued our investigation," the detective told the court during Clark’s hearing.

Shelton said she walked into the kitchen to find the stove "completely covered in old food and trash." They found food in the refrigerator along with multiple flies.

Authorities said they also discovered a bucket full of needles in the apartment, where the family had lived for nearly two years.

Clark told police on the scene that her and Webster were abusing crystal meth and cocaine.

Prior to the Feb. 12 incident, Clark was being investigated by the Division of Family and Children Services for allegedly not having a “stable home.” The children weren’t removed from the home at the time of the initial incident, according to an employee with the social services organization.

This story was originally published February 26, 2016 at 4:37 PM with the headline "Columbus father pleads not guilty to three counts of child cruelty."