A mother from Milwaukee whose 1-year-old daughter died in a house fire last weekend left her 3 young children home alone while she was away in Fond du Lac working as an adult entertainer, a criminal complaint filed on Thursday morning stated.
Quintella Owens, 31, has been charged with Child Neglect Resulting in Death, a felony, and two other misdemeanor counts of child neglect.
The woman now faces more than 26 years in prison.
According to the complaint, Owens originally told police officers that her sister was supposed to be watching the children and never showed up. After further investigation, police say they determined that was a lie.
Firefighters responded to the family home which is located near North 28th Street and West Meinecke Avenue on Saturday night.
Quamyiia Owens, who just celebrated her first birthday in December, was pulled from the home by a firefighter but later died at a hospital.
The baby’s 10-year-old and 4-year-old siblings were able to make it out of the home safely. The complaint said their mother finally made it back to the home at 12:20 a.m., several hours after the fire took place.
According to the complaint, the children said they lit incense by using the stove and then threw it into the trash can. Investigators believe that is what initiated the fire.
Important Gun Safety Tips All Parents Should Know
More than one-third of U.S. households have guns, whether it is for sport, protection or hunting. Whether or not your home is among them, it’s important to teach children the basics of gun safety and what to do if they do find one.
Unfortunately, locking up guns alone isn’t enough to ensure a child’s safety. Here are some important tips provided by Kidshealth.org that all gun-owning parents should know:
- Explain to children that actual guns, unlike toy guns or guns they might see on TV or in video games, can critically injure and even kill a person.
- Teach kids the following steps to take, if they ever come into contact with a gun: 1) Stop what they’re doing. 2) Don’t touch the gun. 3) Leave the area where the gun is. 4) Inform an adult about the gun immediately. All of these steps are crucial, especially leaving the area where the gun is. This is because other children might not know about gun safety, and even very young children are capable of pulling a trigger and accidentally killing someone standing nearby.
- Be sure to never have a loaded gun in the house. Always take out the ammunition.
- Parents should always lock the gun and make sure it is out of reach from children. Simply hiding the gun is not good enough.
- Lock up the ammunition and store it separately from the gun itself.
- Be sure to store the keys to the guns and ammunition apart from where house and other keys are kept. Keep these keys out of kids’ reach.
- Always lock up gun cleaning supplies, too. These can be poisonous if accidentally ingested by a child.
- A gun should never be left unattended by an adult when cleaning or handling it.
When children are armed with gun safety information, and when parents take all of the necessary precautions, guns can safety exist inside family homes.