Mother pleads not guilty to child endangerment

A Carson City woman, accused of leaving three of her children unsupervised in squalid conditions, pleaded not guilty in District Court on Tuesday.

Sheila Eaken, 34, is suspected of leaving her 7-year-old daughter and two infants, ages 1 and 2, alone Jan. 19 while she left for an hour to drop another child off at school and fill her gas tank. A neighbor reported the missing mother and a deputy responded to her home at Sierra Springs Apartments on Hot Springs Road.

A two-day trial is set for Oct. 4.

Eaken was originally charged with endangering all six of her children, but the charges were reduced to three counts at her preliminary hearing, where Justice of the Peace John Tatro ruled that the case should be reviewed in District Court.

According to testimony at the hearing and reports from the arresting deputy and child protective services worker, the infants were lying naked among piles of clothes. They appeared sickly and had sunken eyes.

One of the children was treated for bronchitis and an ear infection at Carson-Tahoe Hospital.

Eaken's children were put in foster care following the incident.