A Connecticut mother who left her two young children home alone for two days and nights while she vacationed in Florida with her boyfriend in November has been arrested, according to reports.
Kerry Lyn Caviasca, a Watertown resident and teacher with the Waterbury Public Schools, allegedly left her kids — who are both under the age of 12 — home alone from Nov. 20 to Nov. 22. The children survived on candy, snacks and Uber Eats deliveries, according to court documents obtained by NBC Connecticut.
Caviasca’s ex-husband went to the Watertown Police Department in December to report that his wife — who has primary custody of the children — may have left the kids home alone. He told police that the students missed school on Monday, Nov. 22, and that he had been unable to contact them over that weekend.
He told police he sent his father to the house to check on them, but he wasn’t able to reach the kids. When he later asked the children whether they had been left home alone, they told him no, but he didn’t believe them, according to court documents.
He went through the messages on a cellphone he had provided one of the kids, which revealed several texts between the children and Caviasca from the weekend.
The text messages showed one of the children asking his or her mother what they were supposed to eat for dinner that night.
“Just eat candy,” Caviasca wrote. “What ever [sic] is downstairs.” She added “there’s so much downstairs” and “I’ll make it up to you,” according to court documents.
Another text from Caviasca showed that she asked one of the children to delete the messaging app from the phone. She then followed up asking if all of the old messages were gone after the app was reinstalled, records show.
After speaking with the children’s father in December, police went to Caviasca’s home and asked her if she had left the children alone in November. She said she had been in Florida with her boyfriend, but the children had been left in the care of her brother. After police pushed her further and told her that the children’s grandfather had tried to reach the children at home, she admitted that they had been left home alone.
In the following days, police spoke with the children, one of whom said they had been told by their mother to stay in the basement and not go upstairs.
In a separate interview, the other child told police that they had been left with snacks in the basement and that the UberEats app was used several times to order food. The child said they did not go to school on Monday.
Caviasca was arrested on Jan. 15 and was charged with two counts of risk of injury to a minor and two counts of reckless endangerment in the second degree, according to NBC Connecticut. She was released on a $5,000 bond and is expected to appear in court on Jan. 25.
In a statement to the outlet from Waterbury Public Schools, the district said Caviasca had been placed on leave while the district conducts its own investigation into the matter.