Police say mom on run hid kids in pit under playground at Fort Lauderdale beach

Police say mom on run hid kids in pit under playground at Fort Lauderdale beach
By Joel Marino South Florida Sun-Sentinel
December 12, 2008

For two weeks, the young girls lived on coconuts, water and food scavenged from trash bins, hiding in a pit dug in the sand beneath a Fort Lauderdale beach playground, according to police.

They could hear other children running and laughing above them, but the two girls kept still — officials say their mother demanded they stay in the damp, ant-infested hole for days at a time.

Kelley Kongkham, 10, told investigators on Tuesday that's where she'd been living with her mother and younger sister, according to police.

Authorities are now looking for that mother, Tammy Kongkham, 35, and Kongkham's younger daughter, Kimberly, 8. The search has been tough — the mother has been on the run since October, when authorities say she kidnapped her girls from a Philadelphia foster home and fled to Broward County.
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