Parkway Inn, 2425 N. Verity Pkwy., is one business under the city’s nuisance microscope. The hotel made headlines last week when police officers and paramedics were called to room 130 on the report that a 5-year-old was not breathing. The boy, Alexander Stephens, died from those injuries on April 29 at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and his brother Damyan, 6, suffered what have been called non-life threatening injuries.
The boys’ mother, Theresa Hawkins-Stephens, 26, is charged with murder, two counts of felonious assault and two counts of endangering children. Her friend, Rachael Bostian, 29, is charged with the same offenses. Bond for both women was set last week at $1 million.
Charges of felonious assault and child endangering remained the same against the third woman accused in the alleged attacks — Ramona Bostian, 56. Her bond was set at $500,000 last week.
While Muterspaw stressed that the alleged abuse against the Stephens boys occurred near the Great Miami River — and not Parkway Inn — he said police have been called there too many times, an expense the city can’t afford.
Middletown police had more than 100 calls for service to the Parkway Inn in 2015, and 25 of those resulted in reports being made, according to police records obtained by the Journal-News. Those reports included a dead body, drug overdoses, missing persons, domestic disputes, drug deals, domestic violence, theft, burglary, vandalism, robbery, assault and intoxication.
And for the first fourth months of this year, police have made 10 reports at Parkway Inn for homicide, domestic violence, drug overdoses, theft, a dead body and a mental case.
No one from the Parkway Inn returned calls to the Journal-News seeking comment.
Because of continued police calls, drug activity and violence, the Middletown police department has closed several businesses, including the B&R Cafe, VFW and Miller’s Lounge. The Grand Illusion was sold the day before it was set to be closed.
Middletown City Manager Doug Adkins said the chronic nuisance ordinance attempts to identify those particular properties by reviewing and collecting nuisances registered across all city departments, then city officials notify the owner that the property is becoming a nuisance to the neighborhood.
He said the ordinance will enable the city to take action against the owner to recover ongoing future city costs in responding to and abating those nuisances if the owner chooses not to take action to correct the situation.
“The idea is to make sure the owner knows that his property is becoming a problem before it escalates, and then to make sure that either the problem is resolved or that the city is reimbursed for future costs responding to problems at that property,” Adkins has previously said.
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