Mother who abandoned child in Colerain issued $100,000 bond, extradited to Hamilton County jail

CINCINNATI — The Indiana mother accused of abandoning her little boy in Colerain Township must come up with more than $100,000 dollars to bail out of the Hamilton County jail.

A judge set Heather Adkins’ bond at $100,000 for a felony kidnapping charge and $5,000 for a child endangerment charge.

The underlying issue of kid safety is a central part of her case. People across the region were worried last month when Colerain Township police asked for help finding family of a 5-year-old boy found alone on Sheed Road on a cold, rainy night. Investigators said he was non-verbal.

A driver named Ron Reese saw the child waving for help.

"He seemed cold, he seemed lost, he seemed disheveled, but once he (saw) that there was somebody there, some people there to help him, he began to relax a little bit," Reese said.

Police in Georgetown, Kentucky found the mother days later after a friend in Tennessee helped them track her. That friend was Crystalyn Davis. Davis said Adkins showed up at her home and asked her to watch two of her children, but the middle child, Thomas, was not there. It was his 6th birthday weekend.

"She said she had got in a fight with Kevin, which is the kids’ dad, and that he had pretty much kept Thomas from her,” Davis said. “She said, 'I’m going back up there to get him,' and then I’ll come back and get the two boys.”

From jail, the mother told reporters she left the child to save him from herself.

Later, she saidshe had to leave him in her car that broke down while she went to a gas station.

“(Thomas) waited in the car,” Adkins said. “I had him wait in the car because I ran out of gas, and I had to go forward to get help. But, it was in the middle of the night, and I didn’t have a phone or anything to call for help,” said Adkins.

She appeared in court Thursday for the bond hearing and stood beside her court-appointed attorney, Vanita Fleckinger.

“My client has never been in trouble. She is 32 years old. She is a high school graduate. She graduated from high school in Tennessee, and she actually completed about half of her nursing school education. She is the mother of a total of three children. She understands the nature of the charges,” Fleckinger said in court.

Assistant Prosecutor David Wood told the judge the Indiana mother is likely to miss court dates due to drug abuse.

“This was a pre-planned thing where the defendant took her other two children to Tennessee first, abandoning this child,” said Wood. “Because of a high likelihood that a drug addict, someone using methamphetamine, heroin, would return to using that before treatment would be successful, we think she’s a high risk.”

After the bond hearing, Adkins’ husband spoke to WCPO 9 News from an Indiana jail. He’s been there since Feb 2, connected to an unrelated drug charge.

“Well [it] will give her time to sit and think about why she’s in there,” said the husband.

He said he’s worried about his children. They are in the care of the family friend and Ohio Job and Family Services.

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