TRENTON, Maine — An Otis woman was arrested Tuesday morning after two 3-year-old girls in her care were found wandering by themselves on the side of Route 230, down the road from a house where they were staying.
Amanda M. O’Rourke, 32, and the two girls had been visiting a relative in Trenton overnight when the incident occurred Tuesday morning, according to Deputy Jacob Day of the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department. The children got out of the relative’s house and were 100 yards away by the side of the road when someone saw that they were unsupervised and called police, Day said Wednesday.
Day said that responding police determined O’Rourke, who is the mother of one of the girls, was asleep in the house when the girls got out and wandered off. Another relative in the house also was asleep but was under the impression that O’Rourke and the girls had left the home together earlier that morning, he said.
Day noted that the incident occurred during the morning commute on a section of Route 230, between Route 3 and Goose Cove Road, that is considered a high-traffic area.
O’Rourke was arrested on charges of endangering the welfare of a child, according to the deputy. She also tested positive for drug use, Day said, which is a violation of bail conditions that were set when she was arrested this past summer on an alleged drunken driving charge.
O’Rourke made bail and was released from Hancock County Jail in Ellsworth later on Tuesday, Day said.
The deputy said the two girls were left in the care of the relative, who was not charged. The case has been referred to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, he said.
