Three adults who police said were so high on drugs they were barely able to speak or stand were charged with child neglect after they were found in the Walmart Supercenter late on June 18 with three young children.

Johnston

One of the suspects, Lois Johnston, 42, of St. George, GA was also charged with shoplifting $280 worth of merchandise. Ms. Johnston was observed by Lt. Scotty Rhoden removing price tags from items, then stuffing them under a cover in a shopping cart — a cover that one of the children was lying upon.

Another suspect, Jason Bassile, 26, of Macclenny was also charged with possession of prescription medication.

Deputy Chris Walker said police were called to the store about 11:00 to investigate an intoxicated person inside an entrance. They found Mr. Bassile seated next to a shopping cart containing one of the children, who was asleep.

His speech was slurred and he was not able to keep his eyes open, said the officer, but said his wife Amanda Moore and Ms. Johnston were in the store shopping.

Moore

Lt. Rhoden shortly after saw Ms. Johnston attempting to steal merchandise and Deputy Walker stayed with Mr. Bassile, who telephoned Ms. Moore to tell her “...watch out, the cops are here.”
He then tossed a small container into a nearby trash can, and police found that it contained a single dose of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax.

Ms. Johnston was confronted when she attempted to leave the store, and the shoplifted merchandise was seized from her purse and under the blanket.

Ms. Moore was brought to the front of the store, and Deputy Walker said she admitted to taking drugs for back pain. He also observed she was drooling and having trouble speaking. The three children, four and five years old, are hers, and she had no explanation as to why she left two of them in the care of the others considering their condition.

At one point, Ms. Moore fell forward from a bench with a child in her lap.

The children were released to the custody of a grandmother.

Four days earlier, the same three were witnesses to the death of Cynthia Daniels, 55, of Tall Pine Rd. north of Macclenny.

Ms. Daniels was found lying face down in her yard late that afternoon and pronounced dead at Fraser Hospital. The attending physician told Deputy John Hardin the woman’s body temperature was 108 when she died.

Bassille

The report notes that Kevin Wilkerson, 33, of Macclenny was the last person to see Ms. Daniels alive and told police she “...did not appear to be doing well and appeared to possibly be under the influence of medication or other controlled substance[s].”

He dressed her, put her back in her wheelchair and left to go to an auto parts store.

Her body was taken to the medical examiner’s office in Gainesville for an autopsy.

Kids were mosquito bitten

In another incident that ended in an arrest for child neglect, Michael Hamilton, 25, of Macclenny is accused of taking his three children into a mosquito-infested yard off 8th St. late around midnight on June 20.

He told Deputy Earl Lord he feared they would be taken from him following a fight with his girlfriend.

Police were called to the neighborhood about 11:30 the previous evening by Diana Kipp, 20, of Macclenny, who said her boyfriend was drunk and had walked away from their residence with the small children.

Several deputies fanned out in the neighborhood to search for them, and about an hour later Deputy Lord located Mr. Hamilton outside the home of Ms. Kipp’s parents where they had been living.

He then noted multiple bite marks on the arms and legs of the children, and went to where they had been sitting on several milk crates in grass more than knee-high.

The children were released to the custody of Ms. Kipp’s mother since the girlfriend is allowed only supervised visitation. She and Mr. Hamilton have another child together.