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Matthew Scaggs and Sylvia Stocking
Matthew Scaggs and Sylvia Stocking


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Child Eats Pot; Parents Arrested

POSTED: 6:15 am MST August 4, 2008
UPDATED: 12:58 pm MST August 4, 2008

A 2-year-old El Mirage girl was placed in state custody after authorities said she ate marijuana and lived in filthy conditions.

El Mirage Assistant Police Chief Bill Louis said the child's parents -- Sylvia Stocking, 22, and Matthew Skaggs, 24 -- were taken into custody and booked on suspicion of child abuse.

On Thursday, police responded to a hospital for a call that a child was "non-communicative and lethargic," Louis said.

Medical tests showed the girl had ingested an unknown quantity of marijuana, but the child's parents denied it, police reports said.

Detectives went to the couple's home and found what was described in police reports as a "disgusting and unhealthy" living situation, Louis said.

Police reported finding marijuana and drug paraphernalia around the house and in the bedroom where the child sleeps.

Additionally, officers said they found marijuana in the closet of the family's roommate.

When confronted with the marijuana, pipes, small plastic bags and other paraphernalia found around the house, Stocking admitted that it was possible her daughter could have eaten some of the marijuana, police said.

In the police report, officers said Skaggs, on the other hand, told police that it was "none of [their] business how his 2-year-old daughter ingested the marijuana."

Skaggs and Stocking were charged with child abuse, endangerment, marijuana possession and use and drug paraphernalia possession and use.

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