Mother of Child Found Wandering Bennett Road Charged with Child Neglect

An East Ridge woman has been charged with Child Neglect after a person called police to report that her four-year old child was found wandering around a Bennett Road neighborhood.

According to a press release from ERPD, on Wednesday, officers responded to 3585 Bennett Road on a report of a “found child.” Police found that the child had wandered away from a nearby home after having been left unattended by its mother.

A neighbor attempted to make contact with an adult at the home but had no response.

Officer located the child’s mother, Wendy Claribel Tomas Laynes, after one of the child’s grandparents arrived and arranged for the child to be taken home.

The press release states that Laynes was interviewed on the scene and placed under arrest. The charge is a Class E Felony under TCA 39-15-401.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.