A Crestview-area couple were jailed after deputies entered their home to find cockroaches crawling on an infant and bottles of spoiled formula in a baby’s bassinet.
David and Justina Rush were arrested on child neglect and drug charges after two deputies happened upon their home in response to a report of a man running in front of traffic on Aplin Road.
“I found the front door of 2925 Aplin Drive to be wide open ... and I went to the door and called out to see if anyone knew about the man in distress,” deputy Jamieson Ross wrote in an incident report.
After encountering the Rushes and determining the man in question was a relative, Ross said, “I focused my attention on the state of the home.”
The deputy reported “the carpets were filthy with ground in food, dirt and what appeared to be vomit. A stench of vomit was noticeable.”
Ross described “thousands of insects” on the walls, floors and ceilings of the four-bedroom, two-bath home and a kitchen full of “expired and rotten food.”
“Neither toilet in the home worked,” the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office report states. “One toilet had fallen through the floor and feces were visible in the bottom of the toilet. The other toilet is inoperable.”
A news release sent out Monday by the Sheriff’s Office describing the Saturday arrest states “an infant in a bed had multiple cockroaches crawling on it.” The same release states that a deputy “found two bottles containing spoiled formula and a bottle of some type of medicine” in a baby’s bassinet.
David Blane Rush, 27, and Justina Nicole Rush, 24, both unemployed, were taken into custody on three felony counts of child neglect without great bodily harm, and one count each of possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.
A Department of Children and Families worker was summoned to the home to look after three children found there, and PAWS responded to take custody of a sick and emaciated dog in the backyard, the release and incident report state.
Both David and Justina Rush “freely admitted to smoking marijuana while caring for” the children in the home, the report states.
The home at 2925 Aplin Drive is owned, according to Okaloosa County property appraiser records, by Franklin Feagin.
Deputies also took a James Franklin Feagin into custody when they arrested Justina and David Rush.
Feagin grabbed a marijuana plant growing in a pot on the floor in one of the bedrooms at the Aplin Drive home and “shoved it into his mouth,” the Sheriff’s Office news release states.
“He then tried to run from the bedroom and refused to spit it out,” the release states.
Feagin, 43, was charged with resisting an officer without violence, cultivation of marijuana and destroying or tampering with evidence, the report states.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.