In New Mexico, a 40-year-old mother was arrested twice in the same week for reportedly abusing her children in a cruel way by spraying them with pepper spray and making them smoke cigarettes until they puked.
Law&Crime looked at court records and found that Yvonne Legardy was arrested on Monday and Thursday of this week and charged with abuse of a child that did not result in death or serious bodily harm.
According to a story from KFOX in El Paso, Texas, the first event happened on May 31, 2024. The station got a probable cause document that says Legardy’s 14-year-old son ran away from home and went to the Thomas Branigan Memorial Library to ask for help. It was said that the boy said his mother hit him with the blue metal mop handle.
The Las Cruces Police Department arrived and talked to the boy. He said that his brother had hit him because he wasn’t cleaning up their garden “properly.” Police said it was clear that the child was hurt because he had welts on his body that looked like they were the same size as the mop handle.
The police then went to Legardy’s house in the 1700 block of Webster Avenue, where she said her son had lied about the fight they had. Instead, Legardy allegedly told the police that she was looking for “contraband” with her son when he ran off. But police who went to the house also said they saw a blue metal mop in the shed that was clearly damaged in a way that fit with how the child had described being beaten.
As the first accusations against Legardy were being looked into, investigators allegedly learned about a disturbing event that started with Legardy finding a single vaping device and ended with her spraying pepper on several of her children.
According to court records, Legardy found a smoking device at her home on May 11, 2024, and thought it belonged to one of her children. She locked two of the kids in the garden and made them smoke cigarettes over and over again until they passed out because she couldn’t figure out which child brought the vape home.
Official court records say that Legardy got mad when the kids threw up and reacted by getting her Mace and pepper spraying both of them. In fact, police allegedly said in court documents that Legardy has used pepper spray on her kids more than once before.
Legardy’s husband, Lerenzo Andre Legardy, is in jail right now because he is accused of beating two of her children. He is said to have hit two of the teens over the head, shoulders, legs, and arms with an extension cord because he saw them playing with the family’s Amazon “Alexa” device.
After being arrested, Legardy is still being held at the Dona Ana County Detention Center without bond. Records show that she will be back in court on July 31 for a preliminary investigation.