Home Care In Lydick, IN

An Indiana mom and uncle who pleaded guilty years ago to felony meth possession now face felony charges for allegedly neglecting a 10-year-old boy by subjecting him to a trailer home filled with feces, mold, maggots, and several animals, including a Great Dane.

According to the probable cause affidavit from the Hendricks County Sheriff’s Department, authorities responded to a residence where Lindsey Jo Lydick, 38, and Cole Byron Lydick, 36, of Clayton, were living along U.S. Highway 40 on Oct. 11. Investigators had received a report from a person who said that “V1,” the 10-year-old boy, was living at a residence where the “ENTIRE TRAILER IS COVERED IN ANIMAL URINE, FECES, AND OTHER DEBRIS” (all caps as they appeared in the document).

Sgt. Josh Nohren, the documents said, “could immediately smell a strong odor of urine coming from within” the trailer as soon as he got there, and “large amounts of dog feces” led right up to the front door.

After learning that the boy’s mother and the boy’s uncle were living in the trailer, the sergeant was “granted permission to enter the residence and check the welfare of VI,” the affidavit continued.

Inside the home was a Great Dane and four cats, and the “odor of animal urine intensified” the deeper the sergeant went inside the trailer, where the “flooring was covered in debris (clothing, miscellaneous personal property, hoarding),” the documents said.

It was observed that 10-year-old boy, “who appeared to be in good health and with no known injuries,” slept in a room with his mother despite the presence of “moldy clothes on the floor, cat feces, and large amounts of clutter.”

The sergeant further noted that the “bathroom had animal feces and urine in it, and it appeared the shower had not been used recently,” the affidavit detailed.

Shockingly, when the sergeant opened the door to one of two refrigerators in the home, he allegedly found “old, moldy food” inside and flies and gnats flying out of the appliance. That was the last straw, as the sergeant called up the Department of Child Services (DCS) to report what he saw.

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A case worker responded by removing the boy from the trailer home and placing him into the custody of his father.

The case worker allegedly corroborated the nightmarish conditions inside the trailer, noting that the entire floor was “covered in what looked to be urine, grease, and animal feces,” and that the black refrigerator in the trailer had “an odor of rotting meat,” maggots in plain view, and a “coating on the base that looks to be mold of some type.”

Inside the bathroom was an “overrunning waste basket with what looked to be used toilet paper with human urine and feces,” the documents said, noting that the residents allegedly claimed the toilet did not flush.

The responding sergeant concluded that felony neglect of a dependent charges were warranted, and the defendants were booked into the Hendricks County Jail on Saturday, Oct. 14.

Indiana jail and court records show that Lindsey and Cole Lydick have been booked numerous times over the past several years, starting in 2019 with a meth possession case.

Court records show that both pleaded guilty to felony meth possession in 2019 and they were sentenced to serve probation.

After the defendants were arrested again in 2019 allegedly violating their probation, the uncle faced another probation violation arrest in 2020.

Jail records say that while Cole Lydick was released from custody on Oct. 16, Lindsey Lydick remains behind bars without bond in the neglect of a dependent case. A pending misdemeanor theft case from March 2023 explains why the latter is still in custody.

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Lindsey Lydick was scheduled to face a bench trial in the theft case on Oct. 16 — just two days after her latest booking. Hendricks County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Zielinski ordered her bond revoked on Oct. 13.

Read the probable cause affidavit in the neglect case here.

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While you were taking long naps, blowing snow and skiing, the newly completed boardwalk at Lydick Bog Nature Preserve opened this winter. The bog’s peculiar life, like its insect-eating plants, are all dormant now. The wetland is frozen. And the boardwalk itself is plastered with snow, which gets packed down under the footsteps of the hikers who regularly visit this preserve in South Bend.

The nonprofit Shirley Heinze Land Trust, owner of the state-dedicated preserve, finished the boardwalk late last fall and plans to install interpretive signs in the spring when the bog is more truly in its element. A formal public dedication will come in June, Bonnie Hawksworth, director of engagement, says.

The first signs of life may emerge by March when wood frogs, chorus frogs and spring peepers start calling, says Scott Namestnik, who, before he became the state botanist, helped to locate and raise awareness of the bog. By February or March, he adds, we may see red-winged blackbirds or hear American woodcocks. Plants will emerge later.

Or does that depend on what the groundhog says today? Oh, never mind.

There are actually two boardwalks. From the parking lot and the covered pavilion, a fine gravel path leads to a 480-foot wetland boardwalk, which takes you to a short section of hiking trail through the woods. That then connects to the boardwalk over the bog itself, which Hawksworth says is 200 feet long with a 10-by-15-foot platform and benches at the end.

You can also reach the boardwalks via a spur from the preserve’s main 1.4-mile hiking loop.

This roughly $250,000 project began as a dream in Shirley Heinze’s master plan for the 178-acre site after acquiring the land in 2015. A crowd-sourcing campaign last year raised $53,085 (and a lot of social media buzz) to earn a matching $50,000 from the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority. Hawskworth says funding also came from individual donors, including $10,000 from the 1st Source Foundation, which, along with other gifts, was matched by $25,000 from the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County.

South Bend:Crowdfunding campaign seeks $50,000 to build Lydick Bog boardwalk

I checked out the boardwalks a couple of weeks ago as ice cracked under my feet. The frozen air was still and quiet, apart from calling birds in the surrounding woods.

Hikers walk the hilly, wooded main trail so often in winter that, without fresh snow, it becomes packed, hard and uneven — and at times icy — like many dirt trails.

• Lydick Bog Nature Preserve is open from dawn to dusk daily at 25898 U.S. 20, west of the St. Joseph County Valley Parkway in South Bend.

Dress for the cold

It’s cold. It’s winter. Here are insider tips from experienced outsiders on how they stay comfortable. I will share more in a future column.

• Good footwear: If you’re hiking on icy or hard-packed uneven snow, you’ll need good hiking boots. But, to avoid slipping, consider adding Yaktrax or other strap-on cleats that you can find in department stores. Sarett Nature Center in Benton Harbor rents Yaktrax for use on its trails. Some runners go so far as to put simple hardware screws in the bottoms of their shoes. I link here to a how-to article.

• Warm toes: You want your boots to fit well so they don’t slip and give you blisters, but retired St. Joseph County Parks director Evie Kirkwood advises: "One tip I learned years ago is that snug footwear reduces circulation and results in cold toes. I purchase boots that are one size larger than my regular hiking shoe size. Resist the urge to cram in multiple layers of socks.” She wrote that in a blog at the Shirley Heinze website, having culled cold-weather clothing ideas from fellow hikers at Lydick Bog. I link to the full blog in this column online.

• Handwarmer hack: Kirkwood also suggests a way to lengthen the life of an air-activated handwarmer, which normally lasts for hours. “If you used yours a short time and there is still heat left in the packets,” she writes, “seal them tightly in a zip-lock bag. Be sure to press out all the air, or draw it out with a straw. Wrap it in a small towel. You can reuse the handwarmers later in the day, or sometimes the next day, after they are exposed to air again.” Or consider getting a rechargeable electric handwarmer.

• Gloves + mittens: Unless you need your fingers to manipulate things, mittens are the best since they keep your warm fingers together. Even better, you can wear a thin liner glove (made of fleece, for example) inside of a larger sized mitten, advises Clark Richardes, who helps in his family’s store, Indiana Rug Co., 220 E. Mishawaka Ave., Mishawaka. If you're doing something where your hands might sweat, such as skating or cross-country skiing, be sure that all of your handwear wicks moisture. I wear fleece gloves with exposed finger tips (for iPhone photos) but with a mitten cap that flips on and off of my fingers. Indiana Rug, by the way, has a potpourri of gifts, treats and T-shirts that tout the local outdoors, but also a small, growing line of head-to-toe outdoor clothing like Smartwool socks and Merino wool products.

More from today's column:Looking for winter fun? Try a fish toss, hiking, tubing, tree IDs and more. All for free.

Follow Outdoor Adventures columnist Joseph Dits on Facebook at SBTOutdoorAdventures. Contact him at 574-235-6158 or [email protected].

Randy Lydick spent 10 years in the Army, working as a combat medic and a respiratory specialist. But when he was discharged from the military, he didn’t leave the service behind.

He’s still serving, helping other veterans through work with Upstate Warrior Solution, Upstate Veterans Alliance, as president of the Greenville Health System Veterans Association, and much more.

And Lydick is preparing the next generation to make community service a priority by involving his 16-year-old son Sean in the volunteer work.

“I’ve just been really lucky and fortunate, and it’s nice to have the opportunity to give things back,” said Lydick, who is a supervisor for respiratory care services at Greenville Health System.

A native of a small town in West Virginia, Lydick was raised by his grandmother. As a student at West Liberty University near Pittsburgh, he became an Army reservist to help pay for his education, and after graduation, he went into active duty.

Though he was initially attracted to military because of the G.I. Bill, Lydick found that there were other, less tangible, benefits.

“The Army really provided me with structure and opportunities, and it helped me with my self-esteem, too,” he said. “I quickly learned there that how I applied myself, if I did a good job, that I could be rewarded and advanced. That if I were to commit to something, they would commit to me, too, providing further opportunities. … I was mentored by someone for the first time in my life.”

Lydick served in San Antonio, at the Army Institute of Surgical Research, and in Fort Meade, Maryland, and was discharged in 1996.

He was never deployed to a war zone, but through Upstate Warrior Solution, he’s able to find resources for veterans of many conflicts.

At Upstate Warrior Solution, vets “are really supportive of all generations. It’s historically different, of course, with the Vietnam veterans and the challenges they faced. The World War II vets were just a different breed. They came back to different challenges. And our current veterans now struggle more with the mental parts, and at least we identify it and treat it better.”

Many veterans returning home from deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan suffer from severe post-traumatic stress disorder, which often leads to suicide. And it can be hard for a vet to ask for help, Lydick said.

“It’s a macho world in the military, and they want to be normal, so they hide it as best they can, and you have to have a really special relationship with someone to get them to open up. It’s sometimes easier with a stranger when you first meet them to talk to them,” he said.

Lydick also is involved with Wreaths Across America, an organization that seeks to lay a wreath on the grave of every veteran in a veterans cemetery. He spent a recent December Saturday helping to lay wreaths at M.J. “Dolly” Cooper Veterans Cemetery in Anderson.

He also volunteers with Honor Flight, which gives aging veterans, mostly from World War II and the Korean War, a chance to see the war memorials in Washington, D.C.

Honor Flight has always been a rewarding experience, Lydick said.

“I really like the Honor Flight and what they do, especially now. … A lot of (the veterans) never really had to confront a lot of the things they did. They don’t talk about it, that generation isn’t quite as chatty as our current generation, and a lot of people will say, ‘I never knew what my dad did until he went on the Honor Flight and finally started talking about it.’ That’s really, really meaningful.”

And though he can’t relate on a personal level to the experiences of vets who served in combat six or seven decades ago, Lydick is moved by the lives and service of those who did.

“When I go to these events and I do these things, I’m always surrounded by the greatest people,” Lydick said. “I have lunch with a World War II veteran, and just to sit and talk to a World War II veteran, to hear his stories, to be around those types of people, is just awesome.”

By Jessica Middleton

Pastor Erik Lydick, sitting near the entrance to the Trenton Transit Center, immediately stands outin his black hoodie with the words “God’s Got This.” Lydick works at Restoring Hearts Ministries and is a very active part of the Trenton and Ewing communities.

He explained that at the Ministries, “the guys are sitting down, they are being taught the Bible,and everybody gets a breakfast sandwich”. Lydick and his fellow workers are able to talk to roughly 100-125 patrons each week in these Bible study groups. They also spend some time providing food for unsheltered individuals xperiencing homelessness roughly five times a week wherever the need is.

Lydick has a series of goals for his program aimed at making sure that those experiencing homelessness are receiving the care, guidance, and resources that they may not find through state-run organizations and initiatives.

First and foremost, his main goal is to make sure that these individuals know that someone cares about them.

“You guys have probably had some kind of interaction with homeless folks, people struggling in homelessness, so you understand that for the most part they really feel like they’re not valued. That nobody really loves them. That’s kind of one of our main goals. Our motto really is: work hard to establish trust, so that we can establish a relationship,” Lydick emphasized.

One of the newest projects that Restoring Hearts has taken on is a housing project on Ewing’s Iowana Avenue, which aims to offer safe housing to those who need it. Its functions surpass those of a typical recovery house.

More specifically, Lydick wants it to feel like home. While there is no limit to how long residents can live in the house, they must follow program guidelines during their stay. And while the house can technically house 14 individuals, it is being limited to only five.

This is in an effort to bring about that feeling of having a home, as opposed to simply some place to rest your head. Lydick proudly proclaimed the effect that this has had on those who have stayed in the house:

“In three short weeks, you start to see a change. They go from folded into themselves to initiating conversations with each other and joking around. Their personalities start to resurface.”

Lydick discussed his long term goals for Restoring Hearts over the next decade. He hopes to continue being able to maintain this feeling of family among his residents even as they create their own families and move into their own houses. He also hopes that more people come to recognize the group’s efforts and join them. He also wants create a location for Restoring Hearts within Tren- ton’s city limits, making it easier for those he serves to go here as opposed to needing transportation for the home in Ewing.

With expertise spanning engagement photos to family portraits, Abigail Lydick of Abigail Gingerale Photography is no stranger to sentimental shots. While each and every love story that Lydick sees through her lens is special, one photo shoot has hit particularly close to home, as the series' subjects were her own grandparents.

George and Ginger Brown met at a restaurant on June 2, 1958. Exactly one year and four days later, the love birds were married, and now—”60 years, 4 kids, 18 grandkids, and 19 great- grandkids later”—they remain happy as can be. And, in order to help the pair properly celebrate six decades of love, Lydick decided to treat them to a surprise photo shoot.

“We knew we had to do something special,” Lydick explains, “because (and I may be biased) they are the best grandparents ever!” This “something special” turned out to be much more than a simple anniversary session; in fact, it more closely resembled a wedding shoot, with a white gown, elegant bouquet, and an entire team in tow.

“We contacted some of our vendor friends, including the ladies at Bridal Suite Boutique, Ivy On Main Florals, and Christine Swope (who provided not only hair and makeup, but a hair cut and style for Granddad, too!)” Lydick details. “Everyone pulled together to get all the details for their very own 60^th anniversary shoot.”

While all of this effort may sound like serious business, George and Ginger were able to be their playful selves while posing for the camera. “Almost the entirety of the shoot consisted of Granddad cracking jokes, which would in turn cause Grandmom to break out in laughter,” Lydick explains. “She would usually return with a coy comment as Grandad gave her a kiss on the cheek!”

This relaxed atmosphere and approach lent itself to the final product: a collection of stunning photographs and, above all else, a memorable experience. “All in all, it was a beautiful little shoot,” Lydick says. “It was such a joyful day, full of giggles and just plain cuteness, and I am so thankful to have spent all the time we did with them!”

To help her grandparents celebrate their 60th anniversary, photographer Abigail Lydick surprised the happy couple with a stunning photo shoot.

Abigail Gingerale Photography: Website | Facebook | Instagram

My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by Abigail Gingerale Photography.