"The officer went inside, looked around, didn't see an adult," Jersey City police chief Peter Nalbach said. The 6-year-old said he thought she was sleeping."
An arrest warrant has been issued for the mother, 24-year-old Dashnay Beckwith. Police say the home is a mess, with rotting food and nothing to eat.
Neighbors often see the kids outside. "They'd come in the back," next-door neighbor Raymond Santana said. "Mom didn't take good care of them."
Other neighbors were grateful that they were okay, despite being left alone in their home.
"They could have fallen from there, they could have burned the house down," neighbor Tanya Diaz said. "To leave kids like that, they're vulnerable to everything, sexual predators, fire, any kind of bodily harm."
Police say they have spoken to Beckwith several times, but she's refusing to turn herself in.
