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By CHRIS CHMURA
cchmura@tbo.com
TAMPA - Police are questioning the mother of two young children who were abandoned at a Sulphur Springs home in the middle of the night, according to police.
One of the children told police that her mother, Christina Dennard, 24, was a victim of physical violence or foul play, police said.
“She has battered but does not have life threatening injuries,” Tampa Police spokesman Larry McKinnon said in a statement. “She was found walking around the Sulphur Springs area.”
Investigators say Terry Latimore, 35, knocked on the door of a stranger’s home around 2:45 a.m. and asked to use the phone. “When he finished he said he was going outside to smoke a cigarette. The man went outside and disappeared,” police said in a statement.
Latimore has not been seen since.
A one-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl were left behind.
Police said the girl identified Latimore as her father. She also told authorities her mother had been beaten.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Tampa Police Department at (813) 231-6130.
The kids were temporarily placed in the custody of the the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office Child Protective Investigations Unit.
Both Latimore and Dennard have spent time in jail.
Hillsborough County jail records indicate Terry Latimore was arrested on battery and false imprisonment charges in early October. He was released four days ago.
In an arrest report, Latimore is described as 5 ft. 8 in. tall, weighing 200 lbs. He listed his occupation as “landscaping.”
Dennard has been arrested at least twice in Hillsborough County, on charges ranging from grand theft and fraud to forgery and lying to a law enforcement officer.
This girl worked at my job temping for a short time last year… I thought she was a weird duck from the get go!
Please, please DCF. MAke sure these two innocent and precious children get the loving, safe home they deserve. If they’re up for adoption my home is available. It is so sad when people who don’t deserve to be parents have beautiful kids and don’t know how to care for them. Not even animals abandon their young. Get those kids out of there!!
I DO NOT APPRECIATE THE TITLE “DUMPED KIDS FOUND” I HOPE THE KIDS HAVE A LOVING RELATIVE FAMILY TO LIVE IN. THE 3 YR OLD WILL PROBALY NEED PSYCHOLOGICAL HELP. SULPHUR SPRINGS BREEDS DOMESTIC ABUSE,POVERTY AND DRUGS.
I saw on the 6 o’clock news that Mom was found at a relatives home. She didn’t want to call the police to report her 2 kids were taken by her abusing husband since she knew there was an arrest warrant out on her. What kind of mother would put her own need to stay out of jail in front of the welfare of her 2 kids??? Now she wants to work with authorities, please she and her husband just need to sign the papers to terminate custody of these poor kids. I hope the State Attorney takes into account she cared more about herself then her kids before they cut any deals with her. Both her and her husband need to be put away together, they deserve each other.
Drug addiction and domestic violence ruins the lives of many people and their children, in Sulphur Springs and Hyde Park alike. I pray God’s redemptive grace over all of them and us for that matter!
Well Mom has been found…I am really curious as to why she was booked into Orient Road Jail today (I guess she’s done something to violate her probation) if she was battered, shouldn’t the police have taken her to a hospital instead of jail? Seems like there’s a lot more to this story than even the media is aware of. I hope DCF does their job correctly and place these poor kids in a loving home, where they are truly given a chance for a better life.
Some of you responding to this article must not have read it. The mother has been found. Those parents sound like a couple of losers and have absolutely no business having children if they can’t or won’t take care of them. I pray they find a good home with people who will love them and raise them right.
What a pity the law wont allow forced sterilization of people like this.\No doubt the parents will plea some inane reason, find God, beg forgiveness, show contrition and so on and get away with it under the “he admits he killed his parents but now hes an orphan” plea and have more kids.
What a shame
Wow this guy is a real winner…according to his last arrest he hasn’t even been out of jail 4 days. Not to mention since 2002 he’s been arrested 4-5 times for domestic violence/battery (once for a pregnant women) It just never stop amazing me how some VIOLENT criminals are still out roaming our streets, while some non-violent ones are locked up for years (don’t get me wrong I believe people should be punished for their crime, but violent ones should be kept behind bars) Hopefully DCF will find a suitable family for these poor kids to live with. Even though it appears the Mother was battered by Mr. Lattimore, she has shown no interest in putting her kids first before her own criminal habits either.
Being a parent is a privilege that should not be taken lightly. I believe that some people should not have this privilege, especially when there are so many people in the U.S. who would give anything to have a child to love.
The children should be taken away until the Mother can get some help for herself and get away from the jerk father of these beautiful kids. I as a mother just can’t understand subjecting children to behavior like they have had to see. Don’t anyone try tell me some people don’t have a choice…..everyone has a choice and there are plenty of groups willing to offer help. I hope the Mother is smart enough to do that.
This story just keeps getting worse and worse first off:why open the door to your home at 2:45am to let a complete stranger use the telephone obviously someone with a big heart secondly:these children are already aware of what a tough life their mother leads and their father obviously doesn’t care about them, either. The children,hopefully young lives and not be like their parents. thirdly—if he had been battering me, I would leave his butt with my kids so quick he wouldn’t have known what happened. When this situation occurs, the first words out of the woman’s mouth is ‘I love him & he pays the bills’. Ya know what, no man is worth putting up with that beats
me up what’s next, the kids! The 2nd generation of abusers begins.
Wake up America .... this is not what it’s all about .... where’s the love in this entire situation ...other than the person that opened their door!!!
At this point, thank God for them!!!!
young lives
What in the world would possess anyone in his/her right mind to open their door at 2:45 a.m. to a total stranger - no less letting that person into his/her home to use the telephone??? It’s a wonder this isn’t even a more tragic story. If the person hadn’t opened his/her door and had called the police instead, maybe they’d have the father in custody. Good grief!
I cannot image the things these poor children have gone through in their young lives, their mother is being beaten, and they see this, what a sad world they must live in. Maybe it’s time for the mother and father to relinquish custody of these children and maybe another couple can give them the love they surely deserve. This so called man left these children with strangers anything could have happened to them, obviously he doesn’t care what happens to his children.
When reading a story like this one, I am reminded of the immortal words of Justice Holmes: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
Welcome to the world of educators who work in inner city schools. It is very hard, but not impossible, to teach children who have memories like the ones these children will have. If you are shocked by what happened here, then you do not know the lives of many, many children in our city, state , and country. That’s why teaching in high poverty schools is one of the most difficult jobs a person could hold.
Soooooooooo sad whenever there’s children involved. Can’t even imagine what they had to see in their home. The article mentions domestic violence, I pray the mother is found and not hurt somewhere or worse. Domestic violence is aweful more so when children are exposed to it. Why didn’t the father take the children to the grandmother’s home, why a strangers home? All children have the right to a normal and safe childhood, breaks my heart for the ones that have to deal with their parents emotional crap baggage, argueing and fighting. Sooooooo sad.
This is absolutely horrible.
What kind of person would do such a thing? My heart goes out to these
children. Is there any way for the
community to help out?
I would like to make some kind of donation.
I pray that other family members see these beautiful children and come to rescue them. If the three year old says something happened to Mommy. I pray that they find their Mommy and that she is still alive. I pray that they find peace and that whatever they witnessed does not affect them in a bad way for the rest of their lives.
Hopefully the mother will be found alive.
At least the children were not physically harmed. What a world we live in.
Sue
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Posted by Taylor Jansen Jansen, Dunedin, FL on 11/08 at 11:49 AM
Chances are the children should be ok IF they are given proper (psychological) care and given to a home where they can learn to trust (others and themselves down the road).
At such a fragile age they most likely don’t realize what they witnessed (battery, domestic violence etc.) is wrong. This is the time for someone to teach them that life can be better than what they have seen.
As far as the parents? It’s easy to make the wrong choices and slippery slope down that road of felonies and what nots.
Just because some of us have not been there (nor do we care to go there) doesn’t mean that common sense as well as morally, ethically and principally correct choices are easy for others.