RICHMOND, Ind. – Police arrested a Richmond couple on neglect charges after a woman overdosed with a 1-year-old child in their apartment.
On May 10, officers were dispatched around 7:40 p.m. to an apartment on North 13th Street for a reported overdose. Amber Dishmon, 36, was unresponsive. Emergency medical staff revived her.
Dishmon lived at the apartment with her 1-year-old son and 29-year-old Zachary Caplinger. Caplinger, who’d called to report the overdose, became “confrontational and “extremely argumentative” when an officer told him they would have to notify the Department of Child Services because a 1-year-old child was present during the overdose, according to court documents.
Caplinger maintained Dishmon couldn’t have overdosed in front of the child because “they get high together and there was no way she would have gotten high without him,” according to court documents. He also said no one could “tell him who could choose where his kids went.”
Police said Caplinger tried to prevent Dishmon from being taken to the hospital, even though she was “unable to speak clearly or stand on her own power” after being revived. Medics told him she was not “cleared medically to make that decision on her own.”
The responding officer told Caplinger it was “not acceptable to leave” Dishmon at home because she was in no condition to take care of a child.
Dishmon and Caplinger are both charged with neglect of a dependent, a Level 6 felony. Caplinger was previously charged in a neglect case from last year, according to court records.
