3-Year-Old Left To Sleep On Sidewalk As Mother Partied At Nightclub

A Florida mother was arrested on Saturday after police officers found her 3-year-old child sleeping on the sidewalk, leading them to find out that she had left her kids unattended for at least an hour while she reportedly went to a nightclub.

Shyla Heidelberg, a 25-year-old resident of Fort Walton Beach, was arrested and charged with child neglect after police officers found her three children unsupervised, with two of them asleep and alone in her apartment, according to the New York Post.

The police were notified of the case when they found a three-year-old child sleeping in a blanket at 1 a.m. on the sidewalk of the apartment complex. The officers investigated the scene and found the other two children in the unit. Because of the incident, the officers stayed in the apartment unit and waited until the mother arrived, ABC affiliate WEAR-TV reported.

Heidelberg returned after an unspecified amount of time and admitted to the police that she had left her children alone and unattended for ninety minutes while she went to a nearby nightclub for reasons that the police have yet to publicize.

Released from custody the next day, Heidelberg has outright denied the charges that police officers are charging against her, denying that she went to a nightclub that night and claiming that she has evidence of the facts.

“It wasn’t true,” she said. “I have proof that I wasn’t in the club.”

Among the evidence that she reportedly pointed to are witnesses that can corroborate that she was not in the club during the time she was gone, and footage from her Ring doorbell that somehow proves that she did not leave her children to go to the club.

“A couple [of] people can state that I wasn’t there,” she said.

It is currently unclear if Heidelberg has an attorney, or if the police currently have evidence pinpointing Heidelberg to being in a nightclub during the hour or so that she disappeared and left her children alone.