Teenage girl banished to live outdoors for eating a Pop Tart
Digital Reporter
Monday, July 6, 2015, 7:35 PM - When it comes to parenting styles, each family is essentially different.
But a controversial case in South Carolina is making headlines after a couple forced their 14-year-old girl to live outdoors -- even as severe thunderstorms raged on -- as punishment for eating a Pop Tart before asking permission.
Crystal Lynn Driggers, 36, and James Allen Driggers, 33, allegedly sent their daughter to live in a tent several blocks from the family home in Sumter County for a week.
The Driggers set up the tent in a wooded area, gave the girl a roll of toilet paper, a flashlight, a whistle and a watch. They told their child to meet someone at a fence on the family property at specific times each day if she wanted to receive any food to eat.
She was forced to stay outside as a line of severe thunderstorms rolled through the region, just south of Charlotte, last week. Violent storms moved through the area with strong winds, heavy rain and lightning, dropping pea-sized hail across the state.
Radar shows line of thunderstorms moving across Sumter County, South Carolina (circled in red) on July 2. Courtesy of U.S. National Weather Service.
Officers with the local sheriff's department picked up the girl after she had spent three days outside.
Crystal Lynn Driggers and James Allen Driggers, both charged with child neglect. Courtesy of Sumter County Sheriff’s Office
Both parents have each been charged with a single count of unlawful neglect of a child.
Investigators also learned that during the previous month, the teenage girl had been forbidden to enter the family home between the hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Their daughter has been placed in the custody of the Department of Social Services while her parents await a bail hearing. Her four siblings have been placed in the custody of their grandparents.
