Three Ponca City residents face felony charges after toddlers found neglected, injured

Three people are facing felony charges after two toddlers were found living in disgusting conditions and physically abused.

The children’s parents, Christopher and Megan Logan, are charged with child abuse by injury, child neglect and unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia. Christopher’s father, Ricky Logan, who lived with the family, is charged with enabling child neglect, enabling child abuse and failure to report child abuse.

Their initial appearances were held Feb. 22 in Kay County District Court. Charges were filed Jan. 11. A status docket is set for June 21.

Police were first called to the family’s home on Oak Street after a concerned citizen spotted the two kids, a 3-year-old and a 2-year-old, filthy and playing outside unsupervised. According to an affidavit, when officers knocked on the door, Christopher was the only one home and “appeared to have awoken as a result of [police] knocking.”

Inside, officers discovered the living room was full of “filth, trash and a mattress with animal feces on top of it” as well as roaches found all over the home.

“Enough that the officer felt like it needed to be an emergency situation to look into,” said Ponca City Police Capt. Randy Tyner. “The officer contacted DHS to come to the scene so they could be a part of the investigation from the beginning.”

The affidavit states, after she arrived to the home, officers asked Megan when the last time was that she smoked methamphetamine. She said she smoked two days before but didn’t smoke in the house and she kept “her stuff in the kids’ play room out of reach from the kids.”

Christopher also told police he smoked marijuana but not in the home and also kept his pipe and grinder “in the playroom.”

“We do see that sometimes,” Tyner said. “Parents will keep it where the kids play. They don’t think the police will look there but that is a particularly sad portion of the case, that’s for sure.”

Inside the playroom, officers said they saw more “filth, trash and animal urine” among the toys.

Christopher got his pipe and grinder from a dresser.

Megan showed police a card holder box located “on a bed which had a child’s pillow on it that was in the playroom.” Inside the box was “an open-ended light bulb with a white crystal-like substance inside of it, a nail file, a plastic straw with a blue bottle cap around it and a white crystal-like substance inside of it, two earrings, a needle pusher, a Visa debit card addressed to Christopher Logan, a broken light bulb with pieces of glass, a portion of an orange plastic straw, a portion of a white plastic straw, a blue pen and a razor blade.”

“Doesn’t sound like it was totally out of reach,” Tyner said.

The kids were taken to a hospital for a check-up by the DHS worker. She later told investigators it was discovered there was “a cigarette burn on the 3-year-old’s left shoulder, bruising on the 2-year-old’s left butt cheek which appeared to have some sort of pattern,” the youngest also had lice and there was “dirt and filth throughout both children’s bodies.”

According to police, Ricky told officers “the kids are usually naked in the house for potty training.” He also allegedly said “I didn’t have any idea there were drugs being used in the house, and I didn’t know about the condition of the house. My room was that first bedroom right by the front-door that Christopher was sleeping in. I stay in my room, and I work a lot. I just don’t know what’s going on in the house.”

But, police said that’s not an excuse to let it have gone on.

“The children aren’t in positions to know what’s normal. You’re an adult. You’re the senior adult there living with your son. You should know that this is not safe for the children. You have a duty to respond. You can’t just say, well, I wasn’t aware of it. Well, you should have known because you were around it all the time,” Tyner said. “That’s going to be his defense in court, and it’ll be up to the court to decide from there.”