Residents said help was close by, but police allege six children were left alone in a home with no food.
DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. — The death of a 1-year-old inside a Douglasville home has left neighbors grieving and angry after police said six children were abandoned there for about 12 hours without food, just steps from places in the community that could have offered help.
Police have charged Sherry Magby, 37, with six counts of second-degree cruelty to children, and investigators say more charges could be filed as they work to determine exactly how the youngest child died. The case has become not only a criminal investigation, but also a story about visible hardship in a neighborhood where residents now say they would have stepped in had they known what was happening inside the house.
The home at the center of the investigation sits on James D. Simpson Avenue in Douglasville, near a community outreach center and a church. That detail has shaped much of the public reaction since the charges were announced. Ken Howell, who works with the nearby outreach program, told WSB-TV that the center would have helped with food had the family come forward. “All they had to do was come down here. We could have helped them get food,” Howell said. He also said he was shocked because, in his view, the neighborhood already knows where help can be found. Police said officers were called to the home in late March on a report of a child in cardiac arrest. The county coroner later confirmed the death of the 1-year-old child. What officers said they found after arriving has driven the cruelty case as much as the emergency call itself.
Investigators said they entered a home that smelled foul and showed signs of severe neglect. Police said every room was in disarray. Officers reported finding a 10-year-old child in charge of younger siblings ages 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8. According to police, the children had been left alone for about 12 hours and did not have food. The oldest child told officers that the 1-year-old had been eating ants and cockroaches, a detail repeated in multiple local reports and one that quickly came to define the severity of the allegations. Arrest warrants cited by Atlanta News First said the children were left without adequate food and without suitable living conditions. For neighbors, those details turned a private family crisis into a wider neighborhood trauma. One resident, who did not want to be identified, told reporters the case broke her heart and said she would have fed the children if she had known they were going hungry.
Residents said the children were not unknown in the area. Neighbors told reporters they had seen the children outside playing, though some said they rarely saw their mother. That has deepened the sense of regret among people nearby, who now wonder whether behavior that once looked ordinary may have masked something much worse. The case has also revived scrutiny of Magby’s prior legal history. WSB-TV reported that she was already out on bond in a 2023 case in which she was accused of stabbing one of her children in the back with a pocketknife. The station also reported she was due to go to trial next month in that matter. That earlier accusation adds context to the current charges, though authorities have not publicly said whether the two cases involved the same child or whether child-welfare agencies had ongoing oversight of the home. Those unanswered questions may become central as prosecutors and defense lawyers begin to test the record in court.
What happens next will depend in large part on findings that have not yet been made public. Police have said more charges could be coming, which suggests the death investigation is still active and incomplete. A final determination from the medical examiner or coroner could shape whether prosecutors pursue counts beyond child cruelty. For now, Magby is being held without bond, and the known criminal case centers on the conditions police said they documented when they entered the house. The broader picture is still forming: how long the children had been left alone before the emergency call, whether anyone had reported concerns earlier, and whether records from schools, medical providers or social services will show prior contact with the family. Until those pieces are made public, the neighborhood is left with the facts already on record and the harder question that follows tragedies like this one — how such a severe breakdown unfolded in plain sight.
As of April 8, the mother remained in jail and the death investigation was still open. The next major milestone is likely to come when investigators announce whether new charges will be filed or release formal findings on the 1-year-old’s death.
Author note: Last updated April 9, 2026.