Two people are now in jail after young children in their custody were found naked outside the Beckley Travel Lodge.
According to the criminal complaint filed in Raleigh County, a Beckley Police officer responded to a call on November 6 at the Travel Lodge on Harper Road in reference to “two small children running around the parking lot…unclothed.”
Upon arrival, witnesses told the officer that they had placed one of the children in a sweatshirt, but the other ran into one of the rooms, the complaint states. The officer then went to the room where he found Patrick Doran Plumley, 22, and Hannah Nichole Murphy, 23, both of Sullivan, along with one of the children.
“The hotel room was in disarray and seemed unfit for any children,” the officer noted in the complaint. While speaking with the adults, they were unable to tell the officer when the children last ate and that another adult, who was supposed to be caring for the children, had left sometime that morning to get breakfast.
Further, they said that when they awoke, the children were gone and the door to their room was open, the complaint continues.
“Only one of the children [was] wearing a diaper and there was only one size of diapers in the room even though the children were obviously different sizes,” the officer noted. Child Protective Services arrived on scene and took the children into temporary custody.
Plumley and Murphy have both been charged with two felony counts of child neglect creating risk of injury. Individual bail has been set at $10,000. They are at Southern Regional Jail.
