Six children between the ages of 1 and 8 were pulled from a Gwinnett County home this month after officers say they found the house crawling with insects, littered with rotting food, and marked by toilets clogged with feces. Their parents, Wicapi Rose Eder and Carlos Calixto Crispin, now face criminal charges tied to the conditions investigators discovered inside the residence on the 1200 block of Sweet Pine Drive.
Police were called to the home on September 1 after a caller reported unsanitary conditions that included flies, mold, dirt, and open cans of paint and caulking, according to CBS News Atlanta. Detectives who responded described the home's overall condition as poor, and an arrest warrant for Eder cited by WSB-TV indicates that its coverage period began on April 13, roughly five months before the arrests.
Toilets, Trash and Isolated Kids
Inside the home, officers found feces on the floor along with toilets surrounded by fecal matter and flies, per the CBS Atlanta report. The arrest warrant described by WSB-TV went further, detailing cockroaches, flies and gnats infesting the entire house alongside scattered used diapers and rotting food. Some of the children were found dirty, with food still stuck to their faces, and the oldest kids reportedly could barely provide their own names and did not know their birthdates or could not identify their school.
The arrest warrant also noted that the family's car seats had been discarded, because the children were never allowed to leave the house, WSB-TV reported. The same warrant material referenced a prior incident at the home involving a child ingesting THC, according to CBS Atlanta's account.
Police Say They Had Been There Before
This was not the first time officers had encountered the family. Gwinnett County Police spokesman Cpl. Brock Marks confirmed to WSB-TV that officers had previously responded to the same address and documented similar unsanitary conditions, adding that young children depend entirely on caregivers for their basic needs. That detail raises questions about the timeline between earlier law enforcement contact and the removal of the children this month, though the dossier does not specify when those earlier visits occurred.
All six children have been placed into the custody of the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services.
Charges and an Outstanding Warrant
Both Eder and Crispin, who is Eder's husband, were charged with reckless conduct. Eder faces additional charges of failure to appear and violating probation; CBS News Atlanta reported that her active failure-to-appear warrants originated from both Gwinnett County and Jones Creek.
Reckless conduct is a misdemeanor under Georgia law, defined as consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk to another person's safety, and it carries a maximum penalty of up to 12 months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000 per count, according to legal guidance published by Justia Law. The available reports do not explain how that charge compares with felony cruelty-to-children charges or why prosecutors filed reckless conduct rather than a felony count.
The home is in Gwinnett County near Norcross. A Sweet Pine Drive property is described as a 1985 multifamily quadruplex with townhouse-style units. Similar cases elsewhere in metro Atlanta are not detailed here.
