Tracy Lynn Betts, Teacher's Aide, Arrested After Daughter Was Found Naked, Eating From Trash: Police

Tracy Lynn Betts, a 40-year-old teacher's aide from Temecula, Calif., was arrested last week after police say her 12-year-old daughter was found naked, abandoned and eating out of a trash can near Vail Elementary School, KCAL-TV reports.

Authorities were called Wednesday after residents claimed to see a naked girl rummaging through the garbage bins in the area. KCAL-TV reports that upon arrival, police found the girl sitting naked and hungry in a car.

The girl told the authorities where her mother was working, and Betts was arrested immediately on suspicion of child endangerment, Temecula Patch reports.

The girl was rushed to the hospital for treatment, and placed in the care of the Riverside County Child Protective Services.

Police told Dominique Prado, who found and fed the girl along with her husband, that it looks like the girl was kept naked so she wouldn't run away when her mother was at work, the Press Enterprise reports.

According to the paper, Betts was released Friday on $15,000 bail.

Comments

[Chris Remington]

11:07 AM on 03/05/2012

im shocked that she is black

[stopnlisten]

12:52 PM on 02/25/2012

One good thing. The child is warm, has food, clothing, and is away from that monster.

[MartinGillespie]

05:37 PM on 02/21/2012

Tracy Lynn Betts, if I meet you on the street, you'd better convince me you're mentally ill and quick, because you're either getting a public beatdown or I'm taking you to the looney bin.

[Renee Johnson]

12:14 PM on 02/21/2012

her mother is a teacher, so why exactly wasn't her 12 yr old daughter at school

[Biblebelt Socialist]

01:06 PM on 02/21/2012

Her mother was a teacher's aide- not the same thing.

[Renee Johnson]

01:47 PM on 02/21/2012

really doesn't matter what she was...why wasn't the child in school is the real question that applies

[26snr]

11:27 AM on 02/21/2012

Was the mother not able to feed or clothe her child? There are discount stores and places like goodwill to help with a small budget. Poor girl :( well we can't choose our parents.

[hellyon3too]

09:30 PM on 02/24/2012

I don't know about feeding, but the child has clothes. That's not the problem. Mom was keeping her naked to prevent her from running away. Totally unacceptable.

[sixtoes]

05:09 AM on 02/21/2012

Gee, I wonder what would have made the girl want to run away?

[AcaciaJ]

07:52 PM on 02/20/2012

Has there been any follow up yet? Any news on why it might have happened? I know the girl ran off in the middle of the night awhile ago, and then the next afternoon, wandered into a local business and called for someone to come pick her up....

[deesighfa]

07:02 PM on 02/20/2012

what is happening to humanity...how can mothers ( & fathers ) harbour so much animosity towards their own children...where is the love people...where?

[rosie-marie]

06:29 PM on 02/20/2012

This woman needs to spend some serious time in JAIL!! He bail should have been set much HIGHER than 15k. This is a little girl we are talking about, a little girl that no doubt counts on her mother to feed her and cloth her... To read this today, literally made me push my lunch aside and just cry... How could someone do this to a child? This story reminded me of a book called "A Child called it" I hope this little girl gets all of the help that she needs and I truly hope the judicial system NEVER gives this child back to Tracy Lynn Betts, I also have taken the liberty of writing to the school that employed this absolutely SICK woman, cause she sure as heck is NOT a mother!!!

[MissMichelleP]

07:59 PM on 02/20/2012

That book came to my mind as well. This story also made me think of a student of mine who was treated just as poorly by his birth parents. Thankfully, he has since been adopted by a loving couple. Unfortunately, when this happens to a child, they are damaged for life. This little girl will have a very long, uphill battle to come back from this.

It's amazing that a woman who works with children as a job can treat her own child in this way. It disgusts me. Sure, there are parents who aren't great in this world. But this woman is a completely different kind of awful.

[tracey fletcher]

04:32 PM on 02/20/2012

No small wonder why the girl was trying to run away. Poor baby.

[AcaciaJ]

07:53 PM on 02/20/2012

And what just happened couldn't have been an attempt at preventing her from running away again?

[tracey fletcher]

09:52 PM on 02/20/2012

I don't understand what you are trying to say -- that the abuse was a valid attempt at keeping her from running away?

[australiagurl14]

11:04 AM on 02/23/2012

Your comment doesn't make alot of sense. She probably ran away because she didn't have any clothes and was starving. She's probably ran away before because she was being abused, neglected and starved to death.

[kimcrdr]

03:27 PM on 02/20/2012

her bail should have been alot higher if you ask me!!!! this poor child, I hope she gets the correct counceling that she needs, this criminal of a mother I hope she gets what she deserves!!!!

[williams74ra]

02:42 PM on 02/20/2012

Scanning the comments on this story is really revealing about attitudes toward children. There were a rediculous number of suggestions that the girl was at fault. ???????? Some suggest that the girl had "mental issues". ???????? Some make excuses for the mother. ???????? I am horrified that there can be such callous disregard for the most vulnerable among us. Now I see how people like Newt Gingrich can get away with trying to end all child labor protections, and Rick Santorum can say that we should turn back 100 years of progress in educating children. He says that before public schools children went to private schools or were home schooled. Maybe the children of the wealthy had these advantages, but without public education many (the majority) kids would not have a chance to go to school. What about home schooling? If the parents didn't have the opportunity to go to school how are they going to home school their children.

It is obvious to me that the GOTP is determined to create a permanent underclass in this country that can be exploited for the advantage of the wealthy powerful few.

[rwsmetros]

10:48 PM on 02/20/2012

To williams74ra, it is with complete and utter disdain that I look at your writings here! You took a sad and horrible story of a child and turned it into your personal political commentary! You also misunderstood anyone who wondered about the full story. You tried to say they were putting blame on the child. As I can see no one who has commented here knows the full story. If we find that this woman did willfully, and with malice do these things to this child, we should bring back stoning for her punishment. Not too many years ago, it was all the rage with liberals that a child should be treated with tough love. This meant removing bedding, cloths, tv and any other perk from the kid until they straightened out. I never believed in that since if you are at that stage you have already failed as a parent. Keep your idiot political views to yourself!

[CMB1969]

12:32 PM on 02/21/2012

What is so odd about suggesting that the girl might have been mentally ill? This mixture of repression & neglect does sound like the manner in which people treated the mentally ill in general 150 years ago, before a mental health structure was set up.

[Seeyl8rg8r]

12:59 PM on 02/20/2012

This is so poorly written, terribly reported and with so little facts, its like a sensational tabloid mag, with the truth so far from reach and with the very intention of spreading fake ideas to the masses for consumption.

[Maya Deleon]

01:54 PM on 02/20/2012

This is only a follow up to an article that was previously written about the girl.

[GDWhiteman]

02:50 PM on 02/20/2012

The article did have a National Inquirer flavor about it.

[onsecondsight]

12:56 PM on 02/20/2012

There are several things to note here. First of all you can not make education or child welfare a low priority and not expect it to secure the nation's future. Second you can not put people in charge of children when they so completely demonstate incompetence with their own children. For a while California Cal Work recipients were paid to get in their 20 hours of child care training so they could work in day care centers. Many of these people LOST thier own children to child welfare because of thier incompetence others still had mental health or substance abuse issues which was part of the reason they were on Cal Works. You have to wonder what kind of value we place on our children when people like Betts and programs like the Cal Works child care seem OK.

[Larry Motuz]

12:51 PM on 02/20/2012

When will 'reporters' actually start reporting the "who, what, when, where, how and why" before rushing to report a 'story'?