DES MOINES, Iowa — A Des Moines mom was sentenced to prison on Monday for abandoning her kids at a home in what was described as “life-threatening conditions.”

In December 2023, court records state that the Des Moines Police Department responded to reports of a possible child neglect situation at a mobile home in the 2800 block of SE 14th Street. When officers arrived at the home to investigate the reports, they discovered two children, age 7 and 6, inside the home.

According to a criminal complaint, the children were abandoned by their mother, identified as 42-year-old Amanda Leigh Myers, at the home. The complaint states that the children didn’t have access to water or food and that the home was filled with rotten garbage, cockroaches, and feces.

The children were relocated to a safe location.

Myers wasn’t apprehended until April of this year, when the DMPD requested the public’s help in locating her. When finally arrested she was charged with two counts of neglect or abandonment of a dependent person and two counts of child endangerment. In July she pled guilty to all four charges.

On Monday, District Judge Jeffrey Ferrell sentenced Myers to up to 20 years in prison. According to the attorney’s office, Judge Ferrell chose the sentence not just for the “awful conditions in the home,” but because the children’s’ lives were at risk due to the “fire hazards and other dangerous conditions” in the home and because Myers was not living there with them. Myers’ parental rights were also terminated.

The attorney’s office said that the children’s guardian testified that the children are now in school and are doing well.