PALM BAY, Fla. — Nathan Karol Forczyk, 42, was arrested July 29 on a felony charge of child neglect causing great bodily harm, the third criminal case to come out of the same Palm Bay household in eleven months, according to a probable cause affidavit filed with the Brevard County Clerk of Courts on July 30.
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The affidavit describes a child who was severely bitten by a dog on the night of July 27 and who did not receive medical care until the afternoon of July 28, when a Department of Children and Families investigator arrived at the home unannounced and saw the child’s face covered in blood.
According to the affidavit, DCF Investigator Christina Celdran conducted the unannounced visit at approximately 2:05 p.m. on July 28. She was told the injury had happened around 10 p.m. the previous night. Celdran took photographs showing dried blood across the left side of the child’s forehead and what the affidavit describes as two deep lacerations, roughly one to two inches long. Celdran then accompanied Forczyk and the child to Palm Bay Hospital, where the child received sutures and lidocaine was administered to clean the wounds.
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Forczyk told the officer he believed the injuries were minor scratch marks. He said the child had been repeatedly striking the dog with an object, that he turned his back briefly, and that after hearing a commotion he found the child bleeding. He said he applied basic first aid, stopped the bleeding, and did not think immediate medical attention was necessary.
Barnett wrote that Forczyk, by willful or culpable negligence, failed to provide the medical services a prudent person would consider essential to a child’s well-being. He was booked into the Brevard County Jail early on July 30 with bond set at $2,000.
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The charge falls under Florida Statute 827.03(2)(b), a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
A Household Already Under a Microscope
This is not the first time police and DCF have been inside this house.
In September 2025, Nathan Forczyk and his wife, Laura Michelle Forczyk, were each charged with six counts of felony child neglect after Palm Bay officers responding to a joint DCF call in the 1200 block of Dillard Drive SE found six children, then ranging from six months to seven years old, locked in separate bedrooms. According to News 6, each room contained nothing but a child-sized potty-training toilet, and the children had no access to food, water, or any means of washing themselves.
Spectrum News 13 reported the responding officer described a smell of human and animal waste so strong he had trouble breathing, and noted one child attempting to eat medical marijuana that had been left in plain sight. FOX 35 Orlando reported that large sections of drywall had been torn away, exposing live electrical wiring.
Both parents posted $30,000 bonds. Both were ordered to have no contact with each other or with the six children.
The Forczyks offered an explanation. Neighbors told News 6 the children are autistic, and police said the couple described the kids as escape artists. Nathan Forczyk told WFTV that four of the six children were autistic and non-verbal, that his family was not perfect but that the children were raised in a loving home. He had, by the department’s own account, called DCF himself asking for help before officers arrived. A Palm Bay police spokesperson told the station this was also a story about a family in desperate need of assistance.
Then the Pool
The no-contact order did not hold. After both parents bonded out, a judge permitted the Forczyks to see their children again.
On Feb. 20, 2026, Laura Forczyk was arrested a second time and charged with aggravated child abuse after the couple’s 1-year-old daughter nearly drowned in the family’s backyard pool. Police said the toddler’s eyes had rolled back and she was struggling to breathe. In a statement reported by News 6, the department said the mother provided no insight into how the infant ended up in the water and that roughly four minutes elapsed before anyone tried to call for emergency help.
Her bond from the September case was revoked. FOX 35 reported that a Florida attorney interviewed about the case questioned how quickly DCF had permitted unsupervised contact to resume, noting that the system’s default goal is to keep families together. DCF did not respond to that station’s inquiry.
A neighbor put it more bluntly to News 6, asking why the children had been returned at all.
The Question Nobody in Tallahassee Has Answered
Eleven months. Three arrests. Six children.
Six children were found locked in filthy bedrooms in September. A toddler nearly drowned in February. And this week, a Palm Bay officer wrote that a child sat with two open lacerations on his forehead for the better part of a day, and that the wounds were treated only because a state investigator happened to knock on the door unannounced.
That last detail is the one worth sitting with. Nothing in the affidavit suggests anyone in the house called for help. The intervention came from outside.
The questions that remain unanswered: which children, if any, were in the home on July 27 and 28; what the current dependency status of all six children is; what safety plan was in place at the residence; and how the September 2025 and February 2026 cases have progressed in nearly a year without a trial date.
Nathan Forczyk is charged, not convicted, and is presumed innocent. The same is true of Laura Forczyk in both of her pending cases. But the presumption of innocence is a protection for defendants, not a policy for placing children.
Anyone who suspects a child is being abused, neglected, or abandoned in Florida can call the Florida Abuse Hotline at 1-800-962-2873. Reports can be made anonymously.
This is a developing story. The Space Coast Rocket will update it as records and agency responses become available.
