Florida Mother and Grandmother Arrested for Locking 5-year-old Twin Girls in a Shed

Deputies in Florida arrested a mother and grandmother after finding twin 5-year-old girls alone, trapped in a shed.

Tamara Stoiber, 37, the twins’ mother, and Sabine Thrift, 59, the twins’ grandmother, are both charged with two counts of child neglect. The former is also charged with two counts of false imprisonment, WCJB reports.

Deputies with the Alachua County Sheriff‘s Office say Stoiber showed up unannounced at Thrift’s property with her 5-year-old daughters, so she could leave them to go “to the store.” Thrift told deputies she did not want to babysit the children.

Witnesses say they later found the twins locked in a shed with the door blocked by a brick. The shed had no electricity, food or running water, and deputies noted a large knife was within the children’s reach.

Thrift reportedly told investigators she sat with her granddaughters for two hours then left them for two hours before returning to the location. Meanwhile, Stoiber was gone for several hours, which deputies say they thought was longer than the usual trip “to the store.”

Both women were arrested Saturday. Stoiber’s bond was set at $70,000, and Thrift’s was set at $20,000.