Courtney Blakley And Kiel Sheppard: Luke Bryan Concert Leads To Child Neglect Charges — Here’s Why
Kiel Sheppard and his fiancée Courtney Blakley drove all the way from their home in New Port Ritchie, Florida, to West Palm Beach to attend a concert by country music superstar and singer-songwriter Luke Bryant. But they overlooked one important detail — and that detail led to the couple’s arrest over the weekend.
The charge, according to WJCL News? Child neglect.
It seems that before Sheppard and Blakley made the 100-mile drive to see the 39-year-old hitmaker perform, they, for some reason, did not arrange for any child care for their two kids who are ages nine and 11.
Instead, WPBF News reported, they packed the two pre-teens into their car and took them along for the ride. But not for the show. Apparently, they also either did not or were not able to purchase tickets for the two kids. So instead, they simply went to see Luke Bryant perform such hits as “Drunk on You,” “Crash My Party,” and “Drink a Beer,” while the two children sat in the car with the engine running.
Sheppard, who according to his online social media information is a professional chef, also left the kids with their own cell phone, and that’s how police were able to track him and Blakley down.
Other country music fans on the way to the concert noticed that the two kids were just sitting by themselves in the running vehicle, and someone called the authorities to report what they’d seen.
When the cops showed up they used the children’s cell phone to call Sheppard. When he and Blakley showed up, they were arrested on charges of child neglect.
As child neglect cases go, the Luke Bryant concert incident was not as bad as some. For example, in July of last year, a 25-year-old mom in Louisiana, Princess Marks, was hit with felony child desertion after police say that she left her two children terrified and alone in her SUV after midnight in a Walmart parking lot.
She then met a man she said was her boyfriend in another vehicle across the parking lot, where she performed oral sex on him. Read the Inquisitr account of that bizarre incident at this link.
Nor was the Sheppard and Blakley case an incident of leaving a helpless child alone in a hot car — a form of child neglect that results in an average of 38 deaths of children every year.
According to media reports, however, Kiel Sheppard and Courtney Blakley acknowledged to police that leaving the kids alone in the car while they went to see Luke Bryant “was not the best idea.”
[Images: Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office]
