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A Polk County teacher left a 4-year-old at home alone to get marijuana, deputies say

 
Deputies arrested Marsha Dolce, 26, on March 17 after they said a 4-year-old boy in her custody was wandering around by himself outside her home in Village Way in Davenport at  6:49 a.m. [Polk County Sheriff's Office]
Deputies arrested Marsha Dolce, 26, on March 17 after they said a 4-year-old boy in her custody was wandering around by himself outside her home in Village Way in Davenport at 6:49 a.m. [Polk County Sheriff's Office]
Published March 19, 2018

EDITTOR'S NOTE: Charges in this case have been dropped.

A fourth-grade teacher in Polk County left her 4-year-old at home alone while she went to get marijuana, Polk County Sheriff's deputies said.

Deputies arrested Marsha Dolce, 26, on March 17 after they said a 4-year-old boy in her custody, who wasn't identified by police, was wandering around by himself outside her home in Village Way in Davenport at 6:49 a.m. He was crying and asking for help "wearing only a T-shirt and underwear."

Dolce, who teaches at Laurel Elementary in Poinciana and has been employed Polk County School Board for roughly three months, didn't return to her apartment until 7:51 a.m., deputies said. She told them that she had left the house to help a friend who was having car troubles.

After a search of her home, deputies found marijuana in a "grinding device" on the kitchen counter. They also said they found a text in her phone sent around 2:32 a.m. that gave an address to the Jan Phyl Village area of Winter Haven.

A reply sent from Dolce's phone said "I'm here" at about 3:21 a.m., according to Polk County deputies.

After deputies confronted her, she admitted to making up the story about the broken car so that she could get marijuana while the boy was asleep.

"She told them that she wanted to get some marijuana, and the 4 year-old boy was asleep, so she assumed she could go to Winter Haven quickly to meet a friend named Dre and get some from him," the Polk County Sheriff's Office wrote in a release. "She said that she and Dre returned to her home, had consensual sex, and she took him back to Winter Haven."

The Florida Department of Children and Families removed the boy from the house and from Dolce's custody.

She faces charges of negligent child abuse without great bodily harm, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

"This is not what we expect from a person in a position of public trust. She left a 4-year-old home alone to go find some marijuana," Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a release.

"To think about this poor scared child crying in the street not knowing where she was — it is just a shame and should not have happened."