Virginia Yearnd and John Guerrero a Houston, Texas couple face 20 years jail after abandoning 11 year old daughter for days so they could go to concert in Detroit.
A Texas couple were on Monday arrested after abandoning their 11-year-old daughter to travel roughly 1,300 miles to go to a concert.
Booked with felony child endangerment were husband and wife, John Guerrero, 48, and Virginia Yearnd, 39, after the Houston area pair left their daughter home alone for a day and a half to see the English metal band Godflesh play in Detroit.
The Houston Chronicle reported authorities discovering the pre-teen being left alone after her great-aunt called cops to report that the child’s parents had left, Wednesday night.
Police made several attempts to reach Guerrero and Yearnd, but couldn’t get through to them for hours.
When they finally got Yearnd on the phone, the child’s mother initially lied, saying she and her husband were in Louisiana, before coming clean about the rock show.
The couple’s daughter was found by police trying to cook for herself.
Yearnd told cops that she had asked her sister to check in on the young girl, but the child told police she was on her own.
But it gets grimmer.
Virginia Yearnd and John Guerrero regularly abandoned daughter:
ABC13 reported the girl telling cops that it wasn’t the first time she was left alone.
‘I know them as good parents, very hard working. He travels, his job is to go set up concerts so I’m sure that he was working and not just going to a rock concert,’ a neighbor told ABC13.
Child Protective Services has since initiated an investigation.
In Texas, a parent – or anyone else who has custody or cares over a child under 15 – can be charged with child endangerment if he or she ‘intentionally abandons the child in any place under circumstances that expose the child to an unreasonable risk of harm,’ according to the Texas Penal Code.
Following their arrest, Guerrero and Yearnd were taken to the Harris County Jail with no bond. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison.
