Father of abandoned autistic boy speaks from jail: ‘I was there for my kids’
Kevin Adkins says he and his ex-wife have a history of drug abuse.
SHELBYVILLE, In. (WXIX) - The father of a 6-year-old Indiana boy allegedly abandoned by his mother in Colerain Township expressed frustration and regret four days after the incident.
Kevin Adkins is father to Martin Thomas Adkins, a nonverbal autistic boy found alone along Gaines Road in the wet, darkened chill of last Thursday night.
Kevin says he had no part in that episode of abandonment.
On Feb. 2, he was arrested in Indiana 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,” Kevin said Monday, ”because it’s always, always been her side of the story, never mine.”
The “her” Kevin mentions is his ex-wife, Heather Adkins, whom Colerain police have charged with child endangerment. She is currently detained in Scott County, Kentucky, awaiting a Tuesday extradition hearing.
Kevin says he and Heather have a history of substance abuse.
“She’s a very good person,” he remarked, “but she makes dumb[***] choices. I think she’s sitting in her cell right now crying her [***] off.”
Kevin says Martin Thomas is a prankster with a “good heart” who loves to joke around.
“I just feel like a piece of [****] dad because I can’t be there for my kids right now,” he said. “If I was there, this [****] would not even happen.”
Kevin’s mother and Martin Thomas’ paternal grandmother, Kathy Adkins also spoke to FOX19 on Monday.
“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 at our sister station in Lexington that she’d left Martin Thomas 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 tells FOX19 Adkins did indeed leave two of her children there—but not Martin Thomas. 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 ‘em,” Kathy recalled. “Nothing was said about why she did that to Martin. Nothing. Nobody even knew that she did it.”
For Kevin, as much as he blames his own absence for Thursday’s alleged incident in Colerain, he blames Heather in kind.
“You know, I made bad choices and done drugs my [****] self. 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.”
It’s just as hard for Kathy to watch from afar.
“One minute, I wanna 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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