MENTOR, Ohio (WOIO) – A Mentor mother facing criminal charges after police said her three-year-old and eight-year-old daughters were found outside in the bitter cold, pleaded not guilty at her arraignment in Mentor Municipal Court Monday.
Laura Beitler, 36, is charged with two counts of endangering children. She remains out on bond.
Mentor police officers were called out to the Extended Stay America hotel at 5650 Emerald Court around 12:30 p.m. on Jan. 29 after a concerned resident spotted a small child alone in the parking lot, crying, and brought her inside for safety.
Police said the three-year-old girl was only wearing a sweater in temperatures of eight degrees with 10 MPH winds. Officers quickly put the young girl in a warm police cruiser.
Officers and hotel residents determined that the little girl had been staying at the hotel with her family.
Beitler told police she had been asleep with her other children and was unaware that her daughter had left the room.
While speaking with officers, she discovered her eight-year-old daughter was also missing.
“I didn’t know how the baby got outside because everyone was asleep. But once I realized that my eight-year-old was also missing, I realized exactly what happened because this isn’t the first time, but the second time my eight-year-old has left with my youngest,” Beitler said.
According to the release, more officers and sheriff’s deputies, along with hotel residents, were called to the scene to assist in the search for the eight-year-old, who her mother said has autism.
A resident found the child, only wearing a t-shirt and sneakers, outside the nearby Hampton Inn at 5675 Emerald Court.
Beitler cried as she told 19 News that there is far more to this story.
She is a mother of five children, three of them have been diagnosed with autism, “We are living here right now cause we were evicted by LMHA. Because of how dirty my house was, because of my depression, and everything I’m going through with the autistic children. I have no help. I have begged and begged and pleaded for the county and other people to help, and no one has stepped in to help.”
Both young girls were evaluated at TriPoint Medical Center due to cold-weather exposure.
The father took custody of them once he arrived on the scene.
Police said the father had been away earlier due to a family emergency.
Child Protective Services is now involved and is allowing the children to stay with their mother as long as another adult is there for supervision.