The grandmother of a teenage runaway has been released on bond from the Habersham County Detention Center following her Sunday arrest for abuse.
Leah Downs Kunkle, 64, of Demorest is charged with first-degree cruelty to children and a misdemeanor count of disorderly house. She was arrested Sunday and was held until her release on a $17,800 bond Monday, jail records show.
The teenage girl, 14, ran away from her grandmother’s home on Twisting Ridge Trail, Demorest, after an argument with her grandmother, said Habersham County Sheriff’s Lt. Matt Wurtz. An uncle reported her missing Friday.
Early Sunday, the teen was seen walking in the woods behind a Demorest church.
After patrol deputies located the teen, she was taken to the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office after medical evaluation, where she was fed while HCSO Special Victims Unit Patrol Task Force investigators reached out to the Powerhouse for Kids, where a forensic interview was conducted, Wurtz said.
“As a result of the forensic interview, a medical evaluation, and follow-up interviews with the grandmother and other members of the family, patrol task force investigators determined that the argument also included excessive physical abuse,” Wurtz said. “The Powerhouse is set up more to do forensic interviews like that, especially with juvenile crime victims in order to get the proper information and have it documented.”
That led to the charges against Kunkle.
While he could not elaborate on medical specifics about the runaway, Wurtz said, there had to have been some type of injury for those types of charges – nothing severe, nothing life-threatening. There’s mental and physical abuse going on in the residence, so yes there is injury, if not just physical or just mental, it’s a combination of both.”
Wurtz also elaborated on the misdemeanor charge against Kunkle.
“The disorderly house charge is more from the living conditions of the residence itself,” Wurtz said. “They had several animals in the house and it didn’t appear that had been cleaned up after in quite a long time, making it borderline if not unhealthy to even being staying in there.”
The Habersham County Special Victims Unit Patrol Task Force, coordinated by the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division, is a multi-jurisdictional, multi-agency partnership that includes the sheriff’s office, Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office, police departments in Alto, Clarkesville, Cornelia, Demorest, Mt. Airy and Tallulah Falls, the Habersham County School System, Habersham County Coroner’s Office, Habersham County Emergency Services, and the Prevent Child Abuse Habersham Family Resource Center of Northeast Georgia.
The Baldwin City Council recently approved participation in the task force by the Baldwin police investigator.
“The task force is focused on the information-gathering, investigation, and prosecution of suspected child maltreatment incidents – cases involving child abuse and neglect, including child sexual abuse and exploitation,” Wurtz said.
