Kanesha Godin, a 25-year-old Colorado woman, has been arrested and charged with two counts of felony child abuse. Godin is alleged to have locked her two malnourished children in a bedroom while she was away on in out-of-state trip.
According to the arrest affidavit, police were called to her apartment on March 8 where they found her children — who are 3 and 4 years old — covered in their own feces.
“The children were wearing soiled diapers and nothing else,” the affidavit states. “[Reporting party] said the apartment was extremely hot and he found that the thermostat was set at 90 degrees. The light inside the bedroom did not work. He used his cellphone light and saw feces smeared all over the walls, dirty diapers on the floor, as well as feces and urine stains.”
Godin, a sergeant in the military, had reportedly asked her friend and fellow soldier Victoria Louis to come by and check on her children once a day to “give the babysitter a break” while Godin was in North Carolina for two weeks.
“[Louis] was also told there was a neighbor watching in those off hours,” Sgt. Scott Gilbertsen told KKTV. “It was her understanding she was to give that neighbor a break for a couple of hours. That turned out not to be true.”
Louis would reportedly feed the children and give them water, change their diapers and then lock them back in the bedroom.
Another soldier called police after accompanying Louis to the home and seeing the squalid conditions in which the children were being kept.
“I have seen some photographs,” Gilbertsen said. “The room is in disarray, the curtains were pulled off the wall, there was feces everywhere — on a crib, on the walls. My understanding was even the kids had feces on them.”
Godin was brought in for questioning on March 9, six days after she left for her trip. She told police that she was visiting her mother who had just had surgery, and that she had hired a babysitter whom Louis was relieving in the evenings. She said any text messages between herself, the babysitter and Louis had been erased from her phone.
Police then questioned Louis, who showed them text messages she had received from Godin.
“The police officers in Fountain r guna ask u questions,” one text said. “They r guna put me in jail. I need u to do me a favor. I know wat I told us as far as the kids, but plz say tht u were confused about who was supposed to stay the night. Cus if u don’t say tht I’m guna be charged with child neglect.”
Louis was later charged with misdemeanor child abuse for failing to report the child neglect.
While questioning the woman identified by Godin as the babysitter, police were shown another text message, which the woman — who said she was never asked to babysit Godin’s kids — described as “odd.”
“I need u to do me a favor,” the text read. “I need u to vouch as my daytime sitter. They r guna take my kids and throw me in jail and I did nothing wrong. I kno it’s weird and a lot but I just want to ask u tht favor.”
The children are now with their father.