13-year-old left alone for weeks in sweltering apartment

STANHOPE - Police have arrested a Sussex County woman they say left her 13-year-old daughter alone for more than a month in a hot apartment with no electricity and limited food. Stanhope Borough Police arrested Lisa Sylvester, 27, on Monday and charged her with neglect and second-degree child endangerment. She was in Sussex County jail Wednesday in lieu of $52,500 bail. Authorities said they found the girl hiding in her apartment on July 27 after the landlord told them he suspected abandonment. Electricity in the apartment had been shut off since mid-May, Stanhope Police Officer Ryan Hickman said. The apartment’s temperature was about 90 degrees and it stank of cat feces, he said. The door was unlocked but the girl had been instructed not to answer any knocks. ``The condition of the apartment was just deplorable,’’ Hickman told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Wednesday’s newspapers. ``This girl was basically raising herself at 13 years old.’’ However, Hickman said, the child showed no signs of malnutrition or ill health. Sylvester, who works in an auto dealership in the Madison area about 25 miles away, apparently stopped by every few weeks to drop off money for food, which the girl would use to buy pizza, Hickman said. Sylvester denied to police that she had abandoned her daughter, saying that car trouble sometimes prevented her from returning home. Landlord Ralph Stone said he was trying to evict Sylvester for not paying the rent, but did not realize the power to the unit had been cut off. The State Division of Youth and Family Services has taken custody of the girl, placing her temporarily with friends in the community. Sylvester could face up to 10 years in prison for the endangerment charge alone. Stanhope is a community of almost 4,000 people located in northwestern New Jersey, about 30 miles from the Pennsylvania border. This is the second child endangerment issue within the county this month. In the other case, a single mother living in a cottage overlooking Lake Hopatcong has been charged with child endangerment after child welfare workers found her five children in ``very malnourished’’ condition, authorities said. The children, ages 8, 9, 11, 13 and 18 were found July 25 after the State Division of Youth and Family Services was contacted about them. The mother, Estelle Walker, was arrested the same day. The children were treated at Newton Memorial Hospital and are now living out of the area with other family members, Sussex County First Assistant Prosecutor William Fitzgibbons said Wednesday upon announcing the arrest. He said authorities did not disclose information sooner because they were still completing their investigation. Walker, 47, is being held at the Sussex County jail on $200,000 bail. Authorities said Walker, who had been living in Brooklyn, moved into the cottage last winter with the help of a New York ministry for single mothers, hoping to escape an abusive relationship. Gayle Paulsen, who leads the ministry sponsored by the Times Square Church in Manhattan, told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Thursday’s editions that the church initially provided Walker and her children with food and other assistance, but the arrangement was only supposed to last until May. The owner of the cottage, Lisa Peluso, a real estate agent who is a member of the Times Square Church, said church officials eventually concluded they had done all they could for the family and the church cut off its support in May and asked Walker to move out. She refused and became reclusive, Peluso said. Fitzgibbons described the children as ``very malnourished, nothing but skin with the bones.’’ Hopatcong Police Lt. Michael Siciliano told the newspaper that it was ``extremely evident that they weren’t eating.’’ Siciliano said authorities believe the children, who were being homeschooled, had not eaten in at least four days.