The children, ages 7 and 4, had cereal and, for a time, milk. Frozen TV dinners and corn dogs, too. All the basics, to their mother’s mind, to survive the 20 days she planned to be in North Carolina wooing a potential husband she met over the Internet.
The mother–Janet Hseuh Chen, 31–tended to the details with meticulous care, authorities said. She unplugged the phone and taped the drapes shut. She lied to school officials, saying she and the children were going out of town. She taught the kids how to heat their meals and stash the trash in the refrigerator away from bugs.
Her plan didn’t quite work.
Neighbors became suspicious Monday when they spotted a 4-year-old boy peering out the window of an apartment in Placentia with a week-old “missed delivery” tag hanging on the door. Their suspicions led them to call police, who discovered the children had been by themselves since two days before Christmas.
“They were alone when all those Santa Ana winds were blowing, and the complex [lost] power,” Placentia Police Detective Corinne Loomis said. “I can’t imagine being 4 and 7 and practically living in the middle of a `Wizard of Oz’ tornado.”
The food ran out Monday, the same day police discovered the kids, and more than 24 hours before Chen’s scheduled return.
As police entered the apartment Monday, neighbors said, the children at first hid in a closet but were quickly coaxed out.
“Are you going to arrest me?” the nervous 4-year-old said. “Please don’t take me to jail.”
Chen was arrested Tuesday night after she arrived home, couldn’t find her children and called police. Arraignment on child-endangerment and neglect charges is set for Jan. 23.
Authorities are trying to decide whether to place the children in foster care or with a family member, Loomis said. The children were in good health.
“She missed it by a day,” Loomis said. “She said as a child she had never been left alone like that” and knew “it was wrong.”
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Chen told her children she was going to China, Loomis said, but flew to North Carolina instead.
“She said she was looking at this guy with an eye to marrying him, but they had a falling out New Year’s Eve,” Loomis said. Chen told police she slept in her rental car for a week until her scheduled flight home.
On Monday, neighbors alerted the complex manager, who called a work number Chen had included in her rental application. The manager was told Chen was on vacation and called police.
Chen and the children moved into the Placentia apartment in July, neighbors said, and kept largely to themselves.
“The kids are never out,” said neighbor Mindy Jedrey, 29, whose apartment opens onto the same front patio as Chen’s.