MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – A Myrtle Beach woman is behind bars after leaving her 3-year-old daughter with strangers at the Budget Inn.
An incident report from Myrtle Beach Police says around 7:17 p.m. Monday night, an officer found Tina Marie Warth, 43, of Myrtle Beach, sitting on the sidewalk at 5th Ave. North and Chester Street with her pants unbuckled, shoes off and was “scratching her body uncontrollably.” The officer notes Warth had “pinpoint pupils” and smelled like alcohol.
Warth told police that she had just drank a bottle of Fireball she purchased from the liquor store, the report states.
While speaking with Warth, the officer was flagged down by two people coming out of the Budget Inn, located at 501 North Ocean Blvd., who stated Warth had dropped off her daughter in the lobby of the motel and asked the two witnesses to watch the 3-year-old while Warth went to get money from her brother for rent.
Neither witness agreed to watch the young girl, who was “grasping onto [Warth’s] leg screaming and crying,” but Warth left the child anyway, the report states. Twenty minutes turned into nearly three hours, according to the witnesses, and Warth had still not returned for the child.
Police note that Warth changed her story multiple times as to where she left the child and where she went during the two hours and forty-five minutes she could not be found. The police report states Warth has been a part of a previous investigation with the Department of Social Services, and that there “is an ongoing issue with the parents regarding the welfare of the child.”
The young girl was taken into protective care.
Warth is charged with unlawful neglect of a child and is currently being held on a $7,500 bond in J. Reuben Long Detention Center.
