CHAMBERSBURG — Police in Chambersburg have charged a 35-year-old woman with a felony count of recklessly endangering a child after they say her five-year-old daughter was found wandering the streets alone Saturday afternoon.
Erin Rebecca Cohen, of the 700 block of Fairground Avenue, was charged after several people called police to report seeing the child, who was riding a bicycle on the 700 block of South Main Street in her underwear for at least 20 minutes around 2:30 p.m, according to the criminal complaint affidavit filed by Chambersburg Borough Police.
The child was approaching strangers asking for Band-Aids, because she had fallen off her bike and scraped her knees earlier, witnesses told police. Two bystanders eventually returned the child to her home, where the door was opened by a 14-year-old boy. The five-year-old ran from the home when the boy answered the door, witnesses told police.
The teenager told police Cohen was sleeping when the child was outside. He said Cohen has trouble sleeping and takes medication to help her sleep, police say. The five-year-old also told witnesses her mother was asleep, police say in the complaint.
Cohen denied she was asleep when questioned by police, claiming she was watching television upstairs. The 14-year-old was supposed to be watching the child, Cohen told police.
Police said in the criminal complaint that their officers have investigated multiple reports of Cohen failing to care for and supervise her children, noting that she had previously been charged with a felony count of endangering the welfare of children for a similar incident in May 2018.