OSKALOOSA – An Oskaloosa man is now facing felony charges of neglect after authorities said his children were observed alone, unsupervised, and dirty, while he was playing a video game.

Court records show that on April 9 at around 4:20pm, the Oskaloosa Police Department responded to three separate calls reporting toddler-aged children wandering around the street with no supervision at the 1400 block of South 2nd Street. An officer made contact with three women, who told the officer they were the children’s neighbors, and they were carrying two children described as “dirty.” According to court records, one was a four-year-old girl wearing only underwear and boots, and the other was a two-year-old boy wearing a diaper that was visibly full of waste. Eyewitness reports from the women and two nearby construction workers alleged that the children had been wandering around the front yard and the street for 30 minutes to an hour.

The women told the officer that the children’s father was 22-year-old Blade Vanderbeek of Oskaloosa. 

When the officer went to Vanderbeek’s address, they found another one-year-old child near the front door, also with a visibly full diaper. The officer reportedly knocked on the door for approximately 5 minutes and received no answer, and then walked inside the home to check on the welfare of the father. It was then that police say Vanderbeek was found in a back room playing video games. Court records show that Vanderbeek told the officer that he had only been playing for about 10 minutes, and couldn’t hear the knocking on his front door because he was wearing a headset. He also said he did not know his children had wandered out of his house.

Vanderbeek was ultimately arrested and charged with 3 counts of neglect or abandonment of a dependent person, a class C felony. He was transported to the Mahaska County Jail and later released after posting a $10,000 bond.