1992 St. Charles Parents' 'Home Alone' Case Effects Last

ST. CHARLES, IL — Twenty-five years ago, a St. Charles couple left their 9- and 4-year-old girls home for nine days, including Christmas, while they vacationed to Mexico. Two days into their trip, a fire alarm went off, causing the kids to go to a neighbor's house. Child welfare agents took them into custody.

David and Sharon Schoo got home from their vacation on Dec. 29 and were immediately arrested for leaving their kids alone for so long. Illinois law at the time was not cut-and-dry, though, and their case sparked a change in Illinois state law regarding child abuse and abandonment. The Illinois' Department of Children and Family Services only considered it abandonment if the parents didn't plan to come back, the Aurora Beacon-News reported.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, a state representative at the time, co-sponsored legislation defining child abandonment as leaving a child under 14 alone for 24 hours. The Beacon-News reported that the kids were left with frozen food, cereal and a note warning them not to eat too much.

The Schoo parents avoided felony charges by bringing them down to misdemeanors, for which they were sentenced two years' probation.

Diane Redleaf, a lawyer and advocate who founded the Family Defense Center, says the new laws are too harsh, the Beacon-News reported. She said the Schoo case is an extreme one and should not be the basis for such laws.

The law doesn't specify how old a child must be to be left alone for a period of time shorter than 24 hours, according to the Beacon-News, and puts forward a subjective set of criteria determining whether or not a parent leaving a child is actually considered abandonment.

The Illinois Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act is "overbroad, vague and harmful," according to Redleaf. "When there are big stories like that it's challenging, because legislators want to do something ... to broaden the authority of the child welfare system to intervene."

Gloria Bunce, executive director of Kane County Court Appointed Special Advocates, noted the fluid nature of what is right and wrong for parents concerning leaving children alone. "There could be a right answer for you but a wrong answer for somebody else," she said, according to the Beacon-News. "And at the end of the day it's the lawmakers who are going to have to decide."

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