Woman found unresponsive with food cooking on stove charged with child neglect

DUNBAR, WV (WOWK) – A woman found unresponsive in her home has been charged with child neglect in Dunbar, West Virginia.

According to a criminal complaint from the Kanawha County Magistrate Clerk’s Office, an officer with the Dunbar police responded to a home on Maple Street in Dunbar around 11 p.m. Saturday, May 21, 2022 regarding a possible overdose. The officer says he saw a woman, identified as Sydney McCracken, 22, lying unresponsive in the living room being treated by firefighters.

The officer says they spoke with another person on scene who told the officer she had arrived at the home and allegedly saw the key still in the locking mechanism of the front door. The woman says she found McCracken lying unresponsive against the front door when she entered the home.

Police say the woman also found two small children in the home when she arrived, one of whom was McCracken’s child and the other was a friend of her child’s. Firefighters told the officer that the children were “very frantic” when they arrived on the scene. The fire department also told the officer they allegedly saw food being cooked on the stove and say, from their professional opinions, the cooking food could have caused a fire if it hadn’t been removed from the stove.

McCracken has been charged with child neglect creating risk of injury.