Mom Gets 10-Year Sentence in Child Cruelty Case

A Cherokee County mother received a 10-year sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of cruelty to children in the first degree charges.

Angel Renee Henderson, 23, will serve 60 days in jail and the remainder of her sentence on probation. Henderson pleaded guilty to charges she left her children locked inside the bathroom of an apartment unit without food for several hours.

She will also have to pay the probation supervisory fee, pay $1,200 in attorney fees, perform 100 hours of community service, provide verification of evaluation or treatment for substance abuse, refrain from consuming alcohol or illegal drugs, not associate with anyone who uses or possesses illegal drugs, not occupy a house where illegal drugs or alcohol are present and not consume alcohol and operate a motor vehicle.

Henderson was arrested on the evening of Wednesday, Jan. 8 after deputies with the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office responded to a call in reference to possible child neglect at the Waldan Pond Apartments on Bells Ferry Road in southwest Cherokee.

Deputies arrived on the scene and met with a maintenance worker who was making the rounds in the complex looking for the source of a water leak.

The worker told deputies he responded to a call from a unit in which a person reported a water leak in the ceiling. He went upstairs to another unit and found two boys, ages 2 and 3, locked in the bedroom of an apartment unit, Cherokee Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Lt. Jay Baker told Patch in January.

No adult was inside the unit with the children, who were discovered playing in a bathroom sink, which was determined to be the source of the leak.

“The children were unclothed and conditions in the room were not sanitary,” Baker said.

According to the incident report, the maintenance worker noted the bathroom sink overflowed, and the carpet in the room was soaked with water. Inside the bedroom, human waste from a diaper was found smeared on the floor and closet door.

The deputy responding to the call also noted the bedroom door was turned backwards — with the lock facing outside — “as if someone did it to be able to lock them inside their room,” he wrote in the report.

Henderson arrived at the unit — where she was living at the time — around 8 p.m. and initially told deputies she was only gone for two hours. However, they later determined she’d been away from the unit since around 11 a.m., Baker said. Henderson was arrested and later posted a $44,000 bond.

Both boys were taken into custody by the Cherokee Division of Family and Children Services.

Henderson was indicted in March on two counts of cruelty to children in the first degree and initially entered a not guilty plea in April.

(Photo: Angel Henderson, 23. Credit: Cherokee Sheriff’s Office)