ANDERSON COUNTY, S.C. (WSPA) – Kiara Sullivan, the mother of missing child Leaona Wright, has been arrested and charged with unlawful neglect of a child in an unrelated case by the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies say her 3-year-old child tested positive for THC, Meth, and Cocaine.
They say Sullivan and Travis Jones also tested positive for those drugs. Jones has also been charged with unlawful neglect of a child and has admitted to using drugs while caring for the 3-year-old child.
As Kiara Sullivan bonded out of jail for an assault and battery charge Wednesday night, those picking her up threatened reporters. One woman even assaulted a news photographer. See the violent confrontation in the video above.
Baby Leaona went missing from the Edgewood Square apartment complex in Pendleton on June 8th.
Detective Garland Major says Sullivan and Jones gave them misinformation about the circumstances of the baby’s disappearance and hindered their investigation.
Anderson deputies say Sullivan and Leaona’s father, Richard Wright, have also been charged with assault and battery 3rd degree for a threatening to hurt a Wendy’s employee.
Deputies say the victim, an employee at the Wendy’s, was told by her manager, Wright, to do a floor sweep. When the victim did not complete the sweep immediately, she overhead Wright talking about her with another employee.
She told police she confronted Wright and he became angry and began to yell at her. He began shaking his finger in her face, removed his shirt, and told her “she could come get some.”
The victim says Wright told her “he was going to get his baby mama to come up there and beat her up.”
A short time later, Sullivan arrived outside the restaurant and began yelling for Reese to come outside. Reese remained locked in the office because she was “afraid that they were going to assault her.”
Authorities are awaiting the video recording from the location.
During Wednesday’s bond hearing, Wright says that “other person involved in the argument, a girl and her father, should be charged too because they started the fight.”
Wright was given a $1,092.50 fine or 30 days in jail for his 3rd degree assault and battery charge.
Sullivan also received a $1,092.50 set bond for a 3rd degree assault and battery charge and a $5,000 bond for her unlawful child neglect charge. She faces a court fine or up to 10 years in jail or both if she misses here next bond hearing in August.
Travis Jones, Sullivan’s boyfriend, also had a bond hearing Wednesday. He was charged with unlawful child neglect and has a bond set at $15,000. His next bond hearing is in August and he will also be released from jail in August for a previous crime.
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