MENASHA, WI (WTAQ) – A 2 1/2 month old baby is safe after being left in a vehicle for several hours while her dad got drunk at a bar.
Menasha police arrested a 53-year-old Merriett Cox from Chilton Wednesday after being called to the Redliner Bar on Plank Road.
Bartenders had taken the intoxicated man’s keys and quickly realized something wasn’t adding up.
Chief Tim Styka explains what happened.
“The conversations that they were having, the male party kept referring to having to check on his girl, which the bar folks were thinking that this may have just been a girlfriend or a wife or someone that he was concerned about.”
Styka says the baby was in the car for about 3 hours.
“Fortunately she had been bundled up fairly well in the car seat that she was in. She was found to be hungry and in a dirty diaper,” said Styka. The baby is now in the care of her mother.
Cox was charged with neglecting a child and bail jumping according to court records and is being held in the Winnebago County Jail.
Bond was set at $1,000 cash, with a plea & sentencing hearing on April 24.
Cox was also ordered not enter “any establishment in which their primary purpose is the sale of alcohol.”
He was out on bond from a previous incident.
