Local woman arrested for neglecting
child
From Staff Reports
Police arrested a Watauga woman on Tuesday for
child neglect after her neighbor reported finding on her own
front porch the woman's four-year-old son wearing only underwear
and a jacket and carrying a fishing pole.
Carter County Sheriff's Department Deputy Dean
Jones arrested Sherry Doss, 37, 1472 Piney Flats Rd., and
charged her with reckless endangerment.
According to police, the neighbor, Nicole Mullins,
1452 Piney Flats Rd., who lives two houses away from Doss,
heard something outside her front door. When she looked, the
boy was standing on her front porch, and she brought him inside
and put pants and socks on him. "Approximately one hour later,
she found the child lived two houses up the road from her,"
Jones said.
Jones went to Doss's home to question her, and
she said her other 17-month-old child was sick and she was
giving her a bath when the boy wandered away from their house.
"Mrs. Doss stated she saw the male child leave and yelled
at him and he heard her," Jones said.
When Jones told Doss the child had been gone
for over an hour, she said, "It didn't seem that long." Doss
said while the boy was gone she went to the house next door
and spoke with an older man and yelled for the boy, but had
to go back to the 17-month-old child.
When Jones contacted the Department of Children's
Services, officials there told him that a case against Doss
had been opened in Sullivan County for a similar incident.
Doss is being held in the Carter County Jail
on a $5,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on March
8.
