(NewsNation) — New allegations of neglect have been made against the Simon and Howell families as the search for 20-month-old Quinton Simon neared its third week.

On Friday, Fox News reported that he babysitter, Diana McCarta — who had been watching Quinton and his two other siblings for about nine months before his Oct. 5 disappearance — believes the infant drowned, revealing she’d found the boy alone in the family’s pool over the summer.

“I felt the whole time that this has happened that Quinton got out and maybe got into the pool,” McCarta, 47, told Fox News Digital. “That’s my feelings all along because (Quinton’s brother) Zayne can open the door, and they’ve gone out before.”

“I go down there, and they were in the pool and we got them out — Leilani (the boys’ mother) was sleeping. It was scary,” she continued.  

McCarta, who was captured having a public spat with Simon’s grandmother, Billie Jo Howell, for suggesting a memorial for the missing 20-month-old child days after the boy’s disappearance, did not mince her words speaking with Fox on Friday.

In addition to the new accusations, McCarta attacked the living conditions Howell and Simon provided Quinton and his siblings.

“Every time they come over here, we bathed them. They were dirty. We fed them good because they were always hungry,” said McCarta, who is a neighbor of Quinton’s family.

Leilanli Simon, 22, did not have custody of her children at the time of Quinton’s disappearance. Her mother, Billie Jo Howell, had legal custody of the children.

It wasn’t until Georgia officials named Lelani as their primary suspect and determined she was “a chronic, unrehabilitated substance abuser of cocaine and cannabis” that her two other children were taken from her mother’s home.

“Definitely, there was neglect there,” McCarta said. “Sometimes Quinton would cry when he had to go with his mom,” she continued.

McCarta’s comments come as protests grow outside the Howell household, with NewsNation’s local affiliate WSAV even reporting clashes with the family and people demanding to know Simon’s whereabouts.

According to WSAV, hardly a car drives by without someone honking, as Quinton’s grandmother was smoking cigarettes outside of the home. The family has since erected a homemade fence with a “no trespassing” sign across it.

“We want justice. We want to know where this baby is at,” Wanda Boatright told WSAV on Wednesday.

The heightened protest comes after reports that Lelani, Billie Jo Howell, and others were at a popular Tybee Island bar on the night of Oct. 25, hours after federal agents left a landfill looking for the body of her son.

The investigation continues, although police aren’t revealing whether they’ve found anything relevant to Quinton’s case.