Smoking, Drinking Boy Taken From Parents

After a 3-year-old boy in his underwear was seen “holding a can of beer and smoking a cigarette,” the man taking care of him was charged with neglect.

The child was removed from the house after he told a county welfare worker: “Yeah, man. Smokin’… cigarettes is cool, man.” The boy also said he’d consumed up to three beers at a time.

Wayne Hamilton, 41, was charged with felony neglect of a dependent, which carries a possible three-year maximum sentence. The child, his mother and other children lived with Hamilton in his rural Ridgeville home.