Special needs teacher 'starved 80-year-old mother who lived in feces-ridden motel room with 16 cats'

• Rhonda Lee Miller, 39, was arrested this weekend after police found her mother living in squalid conditions
• Apopka, Florida police found her 80-something mother living with more than a dozen cats in a feces-covered hotel room
• The motel's owner said she had been living there since mid-December and suffered from dementia
• Miller was charged with elder abuse on Sunday
• Before her arrest she was an exceptional-education teacher at Apopka High School
• School district officials said Miller would be barred from campus if she tried to show up for work

By Ashley Collman

Published: 10:02 EST, 13 January 2014 | Updated: 13:00 EST, 13 January 2014

Elder abuse: Rhonda Lee Miller, 39, was arrested this weekend after police found her 80-something mother living in deplorable conditions at a motel

A Florida special needs teacher was arrested this weekend for neglecting her 80-something-year-old mother.

Apopka Police discovered  39-year-old Rhonda Lee Miller's mother living with 16 cats in a feces-ridden room at the Crosby Motor Inn.

According to the police report, Miller's mother was covered in flea bites, didn't have access to medical care and hadn't been fed in days.

'The officers that responded are all veteran, tenured officers. They were all very, very disturbed by what they saw,' Apopka Police Sgt Ed Chittenden told Fox 35. 'They actually had to leave the room because of the smell of urine and the burning in their eyes, and the insect bites all over them.'

Motel owner John Crosby told WESH that he rarely saw Miller, but her mother had been living there since mid-December.

'From my understanding, since this started, she had been adopting the cats from Petco and places like that for the last three, four weeks and bringing them here,' Mr Crosby said.

He called police on Saturday after noticing an odor coming from the room. 

Mr Crosby said if it were just Miller staying in the room, she would have been kicked out weeks ago but he said he was concerned about the mother, who has dementia.

Deplorable: Motel owner John Crosby shows the conditions Miller's mother had been living in since mid-December

Neglected: Mr Crosby said the mother had been buying cats at Petco and bringing them back to the motel for weeks

Overtaken: Police found Miller's mother living with some 16 cats and kittens

Squalid: Miller's mother had been living at the Crosby Motor Inn in Apopka since mid-December. The motel's owner called police on Saturday when he noticed an odor coming from her room

Miller had her first court appearance on Sunday where she was charged with elder abuse and bail was set at $1,000.

Before her arrest, Miller was a exceptional education teacher at Apopka High School. 

Orange County Public School officials said she would be barred from campus if she tried to show up for work on Monday. They wouldn't say how long she had been working for the school district but records reveal she has a prior criminal record. She has been on felony probation for check fraud and grand theft since 2012.

Special needs teacher: Miller had been working as an exceptional-education teacher at Apopka High School before her arrest. School district officials said she would be barred from campus if she tried to show up for work

'The schools do the absolute best they can in going through and doing background investigations on people, but it is a little upsetting to see that there is a teacher that would treat her mother this way,' Sgt Chittenden said.

Miller's mother was taken to Florida Hospital to be treated for high blood pressure and low oxygen levels and was in fair condition as of Monday afternoon.

She has since been placed in the custody of the Department of Children and Families. It's uncertain what the mother's actual age is, since it has previously been recorded as 83. 85 and 86.