Deputies: Woman left kids in near-freezing temps while hunting hogs

NEW PORT RICHEY — The 911 call came from a shivering 9-year-old on a dark, remote stretch of road. Temperatures were barely above freezing. Deputies found him in a parked SUV with an 8-month-old baby, alone.

It was about 7 a.m. Thursday and the boy was left with a long-sleeve shirt and no coat, according to a Pasco sheriff's report. He told deputies he figured "a police car would be warmer."

Deputies estimated they were at the scene, at 12935 Glades Ave. in the Moon Lake area, for 40 minutes before Kayla Marie Shavers emerged from the nearby woods in a camouflage shirt. She told deputies, according to the report, she was hunting hogs "because they are tearing up the property." Shavers, 30, said she was close enough to the SUV to respond if the children needed her and that she'd been gone about a half hour before authorities arrived. Deputies measured the outside temperature at 38 degrees.

The report does not list Shavers' relationship to the children, just that she was responsible for them.

Shavers, of 9903 Lake Drive, was arrested on two counts of child neglect. She has since been released from the Land O'Lakes jail after posting $4,000 bail.