Marietta police say they found 15 children, ranging in age from 1 to 17, living inside a two-bedroom apartment with only nine beds, no food and no toilet paper. Three adults connected to the household were arrested and remain jailed without bond on child-cruelty and marijuana charges.
According to arrest warrants cited by Atlanta News First, 18 people in total were living in the two-bedroom unit at the Laurel Hills Preserve apartment complex off Bells Ferry Road in Marietta. Officers who responded to the apartment reported finding a mold-spotted blanket hanging in one of the bedrooms, and the warrants state that children were left without supervision for hours at a time.
Three Adults Booked on Child-Cruelty Charges
Ashley Jackson, Derrick Jackson and Briana Reynolds were each arrested and booked into the Cobb County Adult Detention Center, where all three remain held without bond. Each of them faces first-degree and second-degree child-cruelty charges along with a possession-of-marijuana charge, per the same report.
Derrick Jackson faces an additional charge tied to crossing the guard line, the report states. Police told the outlet that Derrick Jackson attempted to hide marijuana in his rectum while at the Cobb County Correctional Facility, an allegation that appears to have led to that added charge.
Conditions Described in the Warrants
The picture painted by the warrants is stark: a household with twice as many occupants as available beds, stripped of basic necessities. With only nine beds for 18 occupants and no food or toilet paper on hand, investigators described conditions that left the youngest residents, some just a year old, going without supervision for extended stretches.
Separately, Georgia law classifies possession of one ounce or less of marijuana as a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment, according to statutory language published by the Georgia Department of Agriculture.
Atlanta News First identified this as a developing story, and further details about the case, including any additional charges or updates on the children's welfare, had not been released as of publication.
