PIERCE CO., Wash. — A Milton father is accused of leaving his 15-month-old daughter in a car overnight in freezing temperatures, while he slept off a drug-fueled binge.
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Key developments:
- Police responded to call of child alone in car
- Father found without pants, holding child in home doorway
- His home was cluttered with toys, garbage
- He claims someone ransacked it
Police arrived at Michael Anthony Dufour's home on Jan. 9 after receiving calls a child was alone in a car.
When an officer arrived, the 29-year-old Dufour was found standing in the home's doorway, not wearing pants or underwear, holding the baby girl.
Toys and garbage cluttered the inside of the home.
The girl was naked, extremely red and lethargic, according to court documents. According to a probable cause affidavit, the little girl had a body temperature of 97 degrees.
Milton police said the girl was found in her father’s car parked outside his house with two windows and the driver's side door left open. The overnight temperature was 26 degrees.
“The child had been in the car probably between six and eight hours,” said Milton police Sgt. Nils Luckman.
The little girl was treated at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma. She had hypothermia and frostbite on her hands and feet.
Investigators say Dufour left the girl in the car sometime on the night of Jan. 8 or early morning hours of the 9th, but failed to call for help.
Dufour told the officer someone must have broken into the home and ransacked it.
While interviewing Dufour, police found 3.2 grams of methamphetamine in his pocket.
Dufour was also charged with with criminal mistreatment in the second degree, abandonment of a dependent person in the second degree, and possession of methamphetamine. He was ordered held on $100,000 bail.
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