Terry Decker, a 48-year-old man, and his wife, Kristy Stacener-Decker, 27, were arrested and held in jail on $30,000 bond each, on three charges of felony abandonment of a child. The Deckers took their three daughters to the East Texas State Fair on September 19, and then abandoned them. The girls were aged 11, 8, and 6, and were wandering around the fair without money. One of the girls was without shoes. The girls eventually asked for help from a deputy, who became suspicious of the circumstances surrounding the young girls and the story that they had simply been dropped off. Their parents were repeatedly paged on the fair’s speakers while officers searched the fair for the missing parents.
Eventually, their parents showed up at 1:30 a.m. to retrieve their children. Police did not apprehend them, though they did report the case to Child Protective Services, who promptly began an investigation into the incident. The Deckers were arrested on September 25. If convicted, they could each face jail time of 6 months to 2 years on felony charges. There is no word on what the Deckers were doing during the time of their disappearance, or why they thought their children would be fine wandering the fair alone until early in the morning.
Filthy Lucre plant resources:
Dracaena fragrans (L.) Ker Gawl.
Viola frank-smithii N.H. Holmgren
Muhlenbergia glabriflora Scribn.
Orbexilum pedunculatum (Mill.) Rydb. var. psoralioides (Walter) Isely
