“House smelled so bad that we both struggled to breathe without having the urge to vomit,” officers state in report

A mother is behind bars and two children with autism were taken into state custody after the family was found living what police described as “awful conditions,” discovered when they were called out by the mother to help find her missing six year old on Thursday evening, according to Polk County Police reports.

Officers arrested and charged Brycen Tara Pike, 47, of an Olive Street residence in Cedartown, on two counts of cruelty to children in the second degree and a single count of obstructing or hindering law enforcement officers on April 29, 2022 around 8 p.m.

Police were first called out to the Olive Street residence after Pike called 911 about her missing autistic daughter. She explained to officers that she had last seen her daughter napping 30 minutes before in her room, and that she found the back door wide open. Police were set to call in search and rescue personnel and a bloodhound tracking dog from Floyd County, but first police wanted to search the residence for the child.

When they went to go inside, they found that they couldn’t do so because the stench was so bad.

“We then requested the fire department to come assist in the search of the inside of the house with the use of a respirator,” the report stated. “Polk County Fire arrived and two firemen searched the inside of the house while wearing a respirator and located the missing girl hiding inside of a closet.”

Now that the child was found safely, police addressed the issue with the state of the house. Officer noted human and pet feces and urine abounded, rotten food, bags of trash and an insect infestation in the house.

The mother told officers that the children had been urinating and defecating on the floor of the house.

Officers informed her that she was being taken into custody on the cruelty to children charges due to the state of the house and the conditions the children with autism were allowed to live in, and the Department of Family and Children Services took the children into their care.

Pike was reported to have become irate and was asked to calm down to keep her children from becoming upset as well, but instead she resisted arrest and was finally taken under physical control and placed in a squad car without further incident.

She was taken to jail for booking, where she remained without bond set on the felony cruelty to children charges and the misdemeanor for obstruction.