Home Alone Couple Get 2-Year Probation in Child Neglect Case

The couple accused of leaving their two young children alone at home while they went on a vacation to Mexico were sentenced to two years’ probation Monday for contributing to the neglect of a child.

David and Sharon Schoo’s daughters, now in state-supervised foster care, could be back in their parents’ custody within “a couple of months,” defense attorney Gerard Kepple said after a hearing in Kane County Circuit Court.

Nicole, 10, and Diana, 4, will visit their parents within a week and make overnight and weekend visits before being permanently returned home, he said.

Under the plea agreement, David and Sharon Schoo were each sentenced to two years of probation and will perform 200 hours of community service, Assistant State’s Atty. John Barsanti said in Kane County Circuit Court.

The couple thus avoided being tried on 64 counts, including neglect of children, endangering the life of a child, aggravated battery, abandonment, cruelty to children and unlawful possession of marijuana.

Authorities said the couple left their daughters alone while they spent nine days on vacation. The parents were arrested on Dec. 29 at O’Hare International Airport as they returned from Acapulco.

Prosecutors said the Schoos left the girls home alone on two occasions, once for four days and then again for nine days in December.

In announcing the indictments in February, Kane County State’s Atty. David Akemann said the mistreatment of the children went beyond being left in the house alone without an adult.

He said that one girl had been locked repeatedly in a room and another in a crawl space for seven hours, and that the Schoos beat both children with a belt and pulled their hair. One girl was scratched on the chest and abdomen and kicked in the ribs, he said.

Authorities learned that the children were alone after they ran to a neighbor’s house for help when a smoke alarm was accidentally triggered in their split-level home in St. Charles, a western suburb of Chicago.

The children have been in foster care and their parents have not been allowed to see them.

Barsanti said the Schoos’ activities will be limited and they will be monitored electronically at home. They will be free to go to work, counseling or their community service work.

David Schoo, 45, was an engineer with a smoke-alarm manufacturing company, which will not confirm whether he still works there. Mrs. Schoo, 35, is a homemaker.