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In separate incidents, two Pasco mothers arrested in drowning deaths of their 2-year-old sons

 
Roxann Potts, 27, faces a charge of child neglect with serious injury for the April 27 death of her 2-year-old son Clayton Foskey. [Courtesy of Pasco County Sheriff's Office]
Roxann Potts, 27, faces a charge of child neglect with serious injury for the April 27 death of her 2-year-old son Clayton Foskey. [Courtesy of Pasco County Sheriff's Office]
Published May 12, 2016

Pasco sheriff's detectives on Thursday arrested two mothers on charges of child neglect in two separates incidents after both their 2-year-old sons wandered away from home.

Both children suffered the same fate: they drowned near their homes.

In both cases, said Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco, neighbors told investigators they had previously found both boys wandering around their respective neighborhoods and returned them to their homes.

"These two women both knew these two kids could escape from the houses," Nocco said Thursday. "This is clearly a case of neglect. This isn't something that somebody one time had possibly fallen asleep and the kid gets out."

Roxann Potts, 27, faces a charge of child neglect with serious injury for the April 27 death of her 2-year-old son Clayton Foskey, who the Pasco County Sheriff's Office said wandered away from his Hudson home and drowned in a nearby creek.

Potts' son got out of the house through an unlocked door, according to the Sheriff's Office. He was reported missing, and after an extensive search by firefighters, law enforcement and neighbors in the Verandahs subdivision, he was found late that night about 150 yards from the house. Footprints led to the pond. Clayton drowned in 4 feet of water after getting tangled in cattails, deputies said.

When Clayton went missing that day, it was the last in a string of incidents in which his mother lost track of him, according to Potts' arrest report. One neighbor had to return him to the house on Chenwood Avenue twice in one day after he was found wandering outside unsupervised.

Another neighbor who brought Clayton home rang the doorbell and waited seven or eight minutes before Potts came to the door, the report said, seemingly unaware that her son wasn't in the house. Even Potts' other children, ages 7 and 9, told investigators they had to bring their brother home after he wandered off, the report said.

According to detectives, when Clayton went missing April 27, Potts was outside on the back patio of the house smoking a cigarette and on her phone. Her boyfriend left the house to get food and told deputies he locked the door, including a secondary lock the couple installed, but Clayton was able to open it.

Detectives said Potts and her boyfriend admitted to them that Clayton had left the house unattended several times. Once, they found him near a lake.

"The defendant did fail to secure the locks knowing her child ... was capable of opening the door as he had done numerous times in the past," read her arrest report.

Both Potts and the 2-year-old's father were arrested in July 2012 by the Hernando County Sheriff's Office. Deputies said they found drugs and a weapon inside their Spring Hill home while assisting Department of Children and Families investigators.

The other drowning incident took place seven days before Clayton Foskey died.

Selina Ann Warner, 26, faces a charge of child neglect with serious injury after her 2-year-old son, Justice Rae, climbed out of his crib on April 20, got out of their New Port Richey house and fell into a pond next door.

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Warner told investigators she was sleeping from about 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., woke up, found the crib empty and started looking for her son. She eventually found him floating in the pond.

The boy died five days later of complications from drowning, her arrest report said.

According to Warner's arrest report, the boy was seen outside by a witness about 30 minutes before he was found in the pond. Other witnesses said they saw the child outside unattended several times in the weeks before his death.

Warner, who has four other children ages 4, 6, 8 and 10, was released from the Land O'Lakes jail on Thursday after posting $10,000 bail. Records show she pleaded guilty in 2009 to passing a worthless check and has been arrested several times for violation of probation.

Potts was being held Thursday in the Land O'Lakes Detention Center in lieu of $10,000 bail.

Both houses, Nocco said, have "histories" of drug use. The sheriff remarked how "unfortunately parallel" the boys' lives were. They were only two months apart in age.

"It's so sad we lost these two little boys," the sheriff said, "but what makes this criminal is that we didn't have to."

Senior Times news researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Contact Josh Solomon at (813) 909-4613 or jsolomon@tampabay.com. Follow @josh_solomon15.