A hearing is set Feb. 3 for a 31-year-old woman who reportedly left her 12-year-old son alone in their Johnson Lane-area home while she was on a business trip to Los Angeles.
Kandee Johnson was charged with child endangerment, accused of leaving the boy unsupervised for one or more days in a house that was littered with dirty dishes and food remnants.
The criminal complaint states the boy and a 12-year-old friend had access to materials to create a "hand-held flame-thrower" from an aerosol can of hairspray.
Deputies were called to the house at 8:30 p.m. on Nov. 8 by a neighbor who observed the boy and a 12-year-old friend tossing burning materials over a fence.
The neighbor claimed the juvenile's mother was never around and the child was unsupervised.
The boy admitted the deputy to the residence and the officer noticed a heavy smell of burning chemicals.
At first, the boys told the deputy they were burning grapes.
But the officer told the children he knew they were lying and the boys finally admitted making flame-throwers with matches and cans of hairspray which they used to burn boxes.
When the friend's mother came to pick up her son, she said the boys told her Johnson was at the store which is why they were alone. She tried several times to contact Johnson on her cell phone without success.
The 12-year-old said his grandmother had left at 5:30 p.m. for Los Angeles and his mother was to be home in three days. He told the deputy a friend of his mother's whom he could not identify was supposed to check in with him, but otherwise he was alone.
He had his mother's telephone number but had been unable to reach her.
The deputy said the house was "borderline unsanitary" with sinks full of dirty dishes and counters littered with dishes and remnants of food. They were about to place the boy with Child Protective Services when he contacted his grandfather who took custody.
About 11:40 p.m., Johnson reportedly contacted the sheriff's office and was informed of the incident and the charge.
Johnson said Thursday she planned to fight the charges.
"I am so mortified for people to think I would leave my son alone. A friend who was hiking was supposed to pick him up. I absolutely feel sick over this," she said.
"I had just spoken to my son and he said he was across the street at a neighbor's house. I didn't know he had come back home," she said.
