The 2-year-old girl had already been sitting in a swing in Norcross' Thrasher Park for a long while, patiently waiting for her father to return, when two mothers decided to call the police.
The toddler told a policewoman that her daddy had promised he would come back for her but he hadn’t. She cried and said she wanted to go home but she didn't know where home was.
The little girl did, however, know her own name, Asia. She said her mother was Patricia and she had a brother and a sister.
Asia also knew she was born on Halloween.
More than two hours later, by then Saturday night, police found her parents, Teresa Menefee and Shannon Grose. According to the report, they smelled of alcohol.
“They both confirmed they were looking for Asia,” officer Ana Losco wrote in her report. “I asked them how long they had been looking for her. Grose told me they started looking for her approximately 20 minutes ago, which was about 19:35 [7:35 p.m.], which was more than two hours after Asia was first seen … alone in the park.”
The parents said their 7-year-old son was supposed to be watching Asia.
“They both insisted they had been at the park the entire time,” the officer wrote in the report. “I then asked them if they noticed that three patrol cars had arrived in the park around 17:50 and were near the playground where they had left 2-year-old Asia. Both couples advised they had seen the police ride around the park several times but had not checked if Asia was OK. They said they had left her in the care of their 7-year-old son Damarius while he played on the playground but had not checked on her for at least two hours since they arrived at the park. When they did begin to look for her after 19:35 p.m., they noticed she was gone. I then asked them why they had not called the police to report she was missing. They did not provide a response to that question.”
The police report of the incident recounts the search for the parents and the confrontational conversation officers had with the father, Grose, once they were located.
Menefee was arrested on an outstanding warrant and was taken to Norcross PD offices in a patrol car; the report said Grose refused to be driven so he walked instead. According to the report, Grose said he was not going to "allow the police to violate his rights."
Once at the station, Grose called the police officer a "liar" and interrupted her with “whatever!” until he started refusing to talk to Losco, loudly accusing the police of “breaking up his family,” according to the report.
Eventually Grose said he would talk with an employee from the Department of Family and Children Services; that was when arrest warrants were secured for the couple.
Asia was taken by a social services worker, the other three children were taken by a relative and Menefee and Grose were taken to jail.
According to the Gwinnett County jail’s website, the two were still custody on Tuesday on charges of first-degree cruelty to children. Menefee also was being held without bond on a Gwinnett County arrest warrant issued on a larceny charge.
Grose was no longer listed as being in the jail Thursday night.
Menefee was listed as paying a $11,200 bond for a second-degree cruelty to children charge.
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