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Moms charged in separate toddler drowning cases

Posted at 1:49 PM, May 12, 2016
and last updated 2016-05-12 18:12:50-04

Two mothers have been charged in separate drowning cases involving their 2-year-old sons, according to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.

The first case was on April 21, when 2-year-old Justice Rea got out of a crib on Yellow Lake Drive through an unlocked door and drowned in a nearby pond. His mother, Selina Ann Warner, 26, of New Port Richey, has been charged with child neglect and serious injury in the case. Four other children were living in the home at the time of his drowning.

The second case was on April 27, when 2-year-old Clayton Foskey went missing in Hudson from the Verandas on Chenwood Drive. Hours later, his body was found in a pond just 150 yards from his home.

His mother, 27-year-old Roxann Potts, was charged with child neglect.

Sheriff Chris Nocco tells ABC Action News that both mothers are being charged because both deaths were preventable.

"There was a history of neglect," says Sheriff Nocco. "There was a history of just allowing these children to wander through the neighborhood without care or concern. That's why they're being charged with a second degree felony."

Both mothers had an arrest history involving narcotics, says the Sheriff's Office.

Their other children are in good hands, he adds.

Neighbors told detectives they'd seen the kids wandering the neighborhood in the past, wearing the same clothes day after day.

The mothers also admitted they knew their children were able to escape from, what the Sheriff described, were each a "house of neglect."