A Miami-Dade woman is behind bars awaiting trial after police say she didn’t allow her daughter outside their home, made her beg for food and didn’t take the little girl to school for several years.
Kelli Mcgriff-Williams has been charged with child neglect with no great bodily harm. The 42-year-old remained without bond at the county’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Thursday night.
On Aug. 26, police responded to Mcgriff-Williams’s home in unincorporated Miami-Dade, where she lived with her daughter — now 9-years-old — to follow up on an investigation of the Florida Department of Children and Families, her arrest report states.
Due to Mcgriff-Williams’ “altered mental state,” she was involuntarily admitted to Jackson South Hospital’s behavioral unit under Florida’s Baker Act law, WPLG Local 10 News first reported.
According to the officers’ investigation, the girl’s father said Mcgriff-Williams didn’t allow her daughter to leave the residence and confined her to a bedroom the majority of the time.
“The victim would have to beg to eat, and the defendant would not always provide food to the victim,” Mcgriff-Williams’ arrest report revealed.
Mcgriff-Williams’ daughter had never been provided an education nor taken to a doctor, per the report.
“The victim is unable to read and write,” the report notes. “The defendant has never taken the victim to a doctor, even when she has been very ill.”
The girl’s father told investigators Aug. 30 that he had been attempting to gain custody of his daughter since 2017.
An official of a child protection team at the University of Miami interviewed the victim, concluding the case “represents child neglect, medical neglect, mental injury and educational neglect,” police noted.
On Sept. 1, police picked up Mcgriff-Williams from the hospital and took her to jail.