Brooklyn mom accused of abandoning kids

NEW YORK

Dalisha Adams, 26, was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

Adams was arrested hours after authorities matched her photo and pictures of the girls from ACS.

She allegedly abandoned her two children, ages 2 and 3, in front of the Bay View Houses on Shore Parkway just before 3 p.m. They were found bundled up in winter clothes and carrying a number of disposable diapers.

The children, who did not live there, could only tell detectives Adams' first name.

They were checked out at Brookdale University Hospital and then placed in the custody of ACS.

The children's paternal grandmother, 52-year-old Bertha Davia, spoke with Eyewitness News reporter NJ Burkett and disputed the police account. She lives in the complex, next door to where the children were found. She says the mother clearly intended to leave the kids with her, but she is furious because she was never notified of their arrival. She said she had no idea until she saw pictures of them in the news media.

"She left them on the corner here," she said. "I live all the way over there. And they was roaming the hallways and all that. Why would she do that to my grandkids? For what reason?"

Although she is angry at the mother, she says the kids were not abandoned on some random streetcorner. This case, she said, may be more of a misunderstanding than anything else.

Davia went to ACS and has asked that the children be placed in her care indefinitely.

"I hope the mother never gets them back, because you don't deserve them," she said. "You don't take your kids and leave them on no street. Two and three years old, c'mon, that's wrong."

Authorities say the children are healthy and showed no signs of abuse.

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