Father of abandoned boy with autism speaks from jail

SHELBYVILLE, In. (WXIX/Gray News) – The father of a 6-year-old boy in Indiana with autism who was allegedly abandoned by his mother in Ohio expressed frustration and regret four days after the incident.

According to court documents, 32-year-old Heather Nicole Adkins left her non-verbal son in a dark, dead-end street about 75 miles from home Thursday before driving away.

Assistant Police Chief Darin Allgood with the Georgetown Police Department said Adkins was arrested at a gas station for an unpaid fine from 2011 after officers responded to reports of an unknown woman banging on car windows and she gave a fake name to police.

The boy’s father, Kevin Adkins, spoke to WXIX from jail. He was arrested Feb. 2 on charges of possessing methamphetamines and driving on a suspended license.

He currently spends his days in the Shelby County Jail on a bail bond of around $700.

“I just want to make sure to get my side of the story out, because it’s always, always been her side of the story, never mine,” Kevin said Monday.

Kevin said he and his ex-wife, Heather, have a history of substance abuse.

“She’s a very good person, but she makes dumb choices,” he remarked. “I think she’s sitting in her cell right now crying.”

Kevin said his son is a prankster with a “good heart” who loves to joke around.

“I just feel like a piece of s--- dad because I can’t be there for my kids right now,” he said. “If I was there, this would not even happen.”

The boy’s paternal grandmother also spoke to WXIX.

“He did survive,” Kathy said of the 6-year-old. “I’m glad. Thank God he did. You know, he could have gotten killed that night.”

From her own jail cell on Sunday, Adkins told a reporter with WKYT that she’d left her son in Colerain Township “to save him from me.”

Adkins later denied she ever abandoned the boy, instead claiming she’d left him and his two other siblings in Tennessee in her attempt to “get away from” her “very abusive ex-husband.”

A family friend living in Tennessee told WXIX Adkins did leave two of her children there—but not her 6-year-old. The other boys remain in that woman’s care.

“The girl told my son that Heather came down there, brought the two down there, and she was crying and said she’d be back in a few days to get him,” Kathy recalled.

While Kevin blames his own absence for what happened, he also doesn’t understand how his ex-wife could abandon one of their children.

“You know, I made bad choices and done drugs myself. You know what? I never done that. I never threw my kids out on the side of the road for nobody. I was there for my kids,” Kevin said.

It’s just as hard for Kathy to watch from afar.

“One minute, I want to cry,” she said. “Next minute, I just want to be... I’m mad at her, and you know, my feelings are going back and forth. I can’t understand why she did it. Any mother that does that shouldn’t be a mother. "

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