Inset: Logan Nickolas (Greenfield Police Department). Background: The apartment complex where a diaper-clad toddler was found wandering alone in the snow in Greenfield, Ind. (Google Maps).
In a distressing incident, an Indiana man has been taken into custody after his toddler was discovered suffering from frostbite while wandering unsupervised in the snow, clad only in a diaper, according to local authorities.
Logan Nickolas, aged 20, faces charges of neglect of a dependent causing bodily harm and neglect that placed the child in a perilous situation, as reported by the Greenfield Police Department.
The incident unfolded on Monday afternoon, as detailed in a police statement released by the department.
At approximately 3 p.m., police officers were dispatched to Prairie Meadows Apartment Homes in Greenfield, a community on the eastern outskirts of the Indianapolis metropolitan area, following a report of a nearly unclothed and unattended child.
The situation was brought to the authorities’ attention when a witness, hearing a child’s cries, ventured outside to find the 2-year-old standing in the snow, his skin alarmingly red from the cold, as documented in court records accessed by Indianapolis-based Fox affiliate WXIN. At that time, the temperature was a frigid 13 degrees Fahrenheit.
One woman called to report she heard a crying child, then went outside to find the 2-year-old standing in the snow with skin the color of beets, according to court documents obtained by Indianapolis-based Fox affiliate WXIN. The temperature at the time was 13 degrees.
Outside one of the apartment homes, responding officers found the child in question, one wrapped the toddler in his coat, and put them “inside a warm vehicle until EMS personnel arrived,” police said.
“Officers found footprints in the snow around the complex where the toddler was located, indicating that they were walking through the snow for a while,” according to the press release.
Those footprints allegedly continued some 750 feet and led back to an apartment unit on Switch Grass Drive with an open front door.
“Officers made announcements into the apartment and got no response,” the press release alleges. So, then the police went in.
Inside, officers found the defendant, who is the child”s father, sleeping on the couch, according to the police department.
After the responding officers made “several loud announcements,” Nickolas finally woke up, said the child belonged to him, and belonged inside the apartment, law enforcement claims.
Police also gathered several other impressions about the apartment itself into the charging document obtained by the local TV station.
The smell of burnt marijuana was apparent inside, police claim. At the top of the stairs, a baby gate was installed, but unlatched, police allege. A handgun sat on one countertop, allegedly, adjacent to a plate with a cut straw on top, an apparent allusion to drug paraphernalia.
Nickolas, for his part, insisted he had not used any drugs but, rather, “dozed off” due to his late-night work schedule, police said.
But that story did not align with what the child’s mother had to say.
In a subsequent interview, the child’s mother said Nickolas had recently been using marijuana, cocaine, and “any other type of drug that he could get his hands on,” according to the charging document.
The child’s mother told police she was at work and had been allowing the child’s father to stay at her home “on and off” for a week. On the day in question, the mother had repeatedly tried to reach the defendant by phone, to no avail, according to the charging document.
When EMS personnel arrived, the child was determined to be suffering from severe hypothermia and frostbite afflicting their fingers and toes, law enforcement said. The toddler was then rushed to a nearby hospital and treated for their injuries in stable condition.
Another resident at the apartment complex spoke with NBC affiliate WTHR about the shocking discovery on that cold, cold day.
“I saw him,” the woman said, explaining that she asked a neighbor to dial 911. “No pants, no shoes – just a diaper. If I can’t feel my fingers or my toes, I know that baby can’t either. That baby should have never been out there without clothes. I don’t even know if the baby had eaten. That’s my biggest concern — being out there in the cold and ice.”
