A 5-year-old Pennsylvania boy bravely escaped naked from a home where he had spent most of his time locked in a feces-covered room that his guardians had turned into a makeshift prison cell, and police have now arrested his three guardians over the disturbing treatment.
Good Samaritans found the unclothed, unidentified boy wandering in the middle of the street near his Swatara Township neighborhood just before 7:30 a.m. on Friday, the Pennsylvania State Police reported.
The concerned bystanders stopped the child, who wore only a green, urine-stained blanket, and stayed with him until first responders arrived and took him to a local hospital for a medical evaluation, WGAL reported.
Police did not reveal how the boy broke free from the home.
Officers traced the child back to a rundown home a few blocks from where he was discovered, and there they uncovered a nightmarish hell hole.
The unsuspecting officers found hoarder conditions inside the residence “with trash throughout, hundreds of flies observed and limited room for maneuvering the house because of the influx of clutter,” according to the police report.
Officers identified one bedroom as the boy’s; it had a baby gate attached to the door. Police said multiple zip ties, duct tape and wooden boards drilled from the outside of the door frame also prevented the boy from escaping the room.
Feces smeared across the walls and windows, and food covered a destroyed bed.
Trash littered the floor of the quarters along with various children’s toys.
Officers learned that the boy spent about 90 percent of his time locked inside the boarded-up room, where the guardians fed him granola bars, cereal, juice, milk and water through the slots of the baby gates, WGAL reported.
The three adults inside, identified as Tucker Heagy, 20, Jade Shuey, 21, and Stephanie Schaffner, 42, allegedly bathed the boy only once a week, sometimes extending the cleanings to more than a week.
Police identified the trio as the boy’s guardians, but the outlet did not reveal an exact relationship.
Shuey told police that the boy could spend up to three days inside the room without being let out, which forced the boy to relieve himself inside the confines of the cell and spread the excrement around the walls.
For the boy to be released from the room, the adults had to cut five to 10 zip ties off the gates, and then they would put the gates back into place with new ties and duct tape each time, Heagy confessed, according to the outlet.
The adults purchased the fasteners in bulk from a local store because of how many the house went through.
The ghastly conditions inside the home, including the unsanitary state throughout the house, led town code enforcement to condemn the home, the outlet reported.
Police arrested Heagy, Shuey and Schaffner and charged all three with one count of endangering welfare of the children.
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