ANNAPOLIS -- On the night of April 15, with rain falling hard in Pasadena, Aca Anderson and Theresa Clifford knew there would be flooding in Glen Burnie. They live together in Pasadena but have a second house in Glen Burnie, where the roof leaked and the buckets they'd placed on the floor would be overflowing from the evening's downpour.
So they decided to drive to Glen Burnie and bail. Anderson
drove, since Clifford has no license. But she tagged along, since he has a bad back and can't bend, and she would have to do the bailing.
But there was a problem. They have two boys, one 7 years old and the other 14 months. The older was watching TV and the younger was sleeping. Both boys had been sick.
So they left them at home, for a period of time Anderson and Clifford say was a couple of hours and Anne Arundel County says was a couple of hours too long.
When Anderson and Clifford returned home, at nearly 10 o'clock that night, they found police and social workers inside the house. The police were there to arrest them for child neglect, and the social workers were there to take away the kids, who were placed in protective custody and, save for an hour here and an hour there, have been kept from their parents for the last three weeks.
And Thursday, Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Eugene Lerner, while sympathizing with the parents and declaring, "I don't think there's any question they love these children," affirmed a juvenile master's preliminary decision to keep the kids in protective custody -- foster homes -- until further notice.
"It's devastating," Anderson said. "We haven't slept since this thing happened. It's the worst thing anybody can imagine."
"You don't know what it's like," added Clifford, dabbing at her eyes, "to go into a bedroom and not see your children sleeping there."
They admit they made a mistake. They say they left the kids alone because emptying the buckets was an emergency and the weather was too rough to expose the boys to it. Would they make such a mistake again?
"If we did, I would give you my home," Anderson told Judge Lerner. "We're not crazy. We made a mistake."
And yet, there is an uncomfortable history here. And, for all their ,, declarations of love, and for all the courtroom testimony from friends that these are good parents, Judge Lerner moved without apparent hesitation.
