HAMILTON COUNTY — A woman arrested earlier this year after being accused of abandoning her son in Hamilton County was found competent to stand trial Tuesday, according to our news partners at WCPO.
Heather Adkins, 32, of Shelbyville, Indiana is accused dropping off her 5-year-old son in Colerain Twp., in northern Hamilton County, while on her way back to Indiana after dropping off two of her three kids with a friend in Tennessee.
Adkins has been charged with kidnapping and child endangering, jail records show. She faces up to 11 years in prison, WCPO reports.
News Center 7 previously reported that the boy, whose name is Thomas, has Autism and is non-verbal.
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In a 911 call, a caller reported that their daughter’s boyfriend saw a child on the road waving down cars. Thomas was found wandering alone on a road with no sidewalk and without a coat in the rain. A driver stopped and took Thomas into his car while they waited on police to arrive.
“I immediately stopped and I was like, ‘wait a minute, this isn’t normal,” Ron Reese, the man who found the wandering boy told CBS affiliate WKYT-TV in Lexington, Kentucky.
Adkins was later located and arrested in Scott County, Kentucky.
Adkins talked with WKTY-TV in a jailhouse interview in which she changed her version of the story a few times. When asked if she left the child with someone, Akins replied, “I meant to leave him there with Patty.”
“No I left him there with Brad, didn’t I?” Adkins replied when she was later asked, for a second time, if she had left her son with someone.
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The reporter with WKYT-TV continued to ask Adkins questions and she responded with contradictory answers about who she left her son with. She eventually said, “No, I didn’t leave him with anyone,” according to WKYT-TV.
When asked by the reporter why Adkins abandoned the child she responded: “To save him from me,” according to the station.
Adkins remains jailed in Hamilton County. Her trail is set form September 12.