The sheriff tells ABC11 that 23-year-old Ashley Milligan of 1310 Boone Hill Rd. Summerville, SC, came to North Carolina Monday to get her baby, but wound up being charged with felony child abuse, manufacture of methamphetamine and felony obstruction of justice.
Her arrested comes after six other people were arrested Thursday when deputies raided a home near the Hoke/Cumberland County line.
Deputies charged the boy's paternal grandmother, Michelle Lynn Tiller, 42, of 165 Watersplash Lane and Samuel Weatherford, 46, of the same address with four felony drug counts and one count each of child abuse.
Four other suspects were also arrested at the Raeford Inn Hotel next to the mobile home.
Sheriff Peterkin says Milligan had a hand in running the operation.
"We found that she was not only there doing some of the cooking, she was involved in the cooking and dealing with the some of the cooking, she was very much aware of the surroundings she was leaving the child in when she brought and left the child here," he said.
Peterkin said the child wasn't taken for medical treatment probably for fear of alerting authorities to the meth lab.
The baby is currently at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center being treated for second and third degree chemical burns on his arms and chest.
Hospital officials aren't releasing the child's condition, but the sheriff says the little boy is doing okay despite developing some medical complications believed to be caused by his exposure to toxic fumes.
Sheriff Peterkin says he's going to do whatever he can to keep the mother and any other family members from getting their hands on the child again.
"It's obvious this child is in the wrong place and probably even the wrong hands," he said. "I think there has got to be something better out there for him."
Bond was set for Milligan Monday at $125,000.
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