Naked, filthy child found in home with 12 rats, 12 cats, opossum and pig, TX cops say
Two Gladewater parents were arrested for child endangerment of their 2-year-old daughter after authorities received an anonymous tip about the “horrific” conditions the child was subjected to, the Longview News-Journal reported.
Elisha Diana Gray, 31, and Matthew Edward Alderman, 43, both of Gladewater in East Texas, are being held in the Gregg County Jail after they were accused of having their daughter “living in horrific living conditions in a home filled with trash and the fecal matter and urine of several different types of animals,” KWTX 10 said.
Deputies performed a wellness check at the home after receiving a call from a neighbor, the News-Journal reported.
The house was in such poor condition, police needed “special gear to enter the home,” CBS 19 said.
After consenting to a search of the mobile home, authorities located “12 cats, six dogs, 12 rats, and one each of a rooster, pig and opossum,” the News-Journal said. The neighbor who provided the tip said Gray told him “she cut the umbilical cord for the child inside her home and had never taken the child to a doctor or obtained documents for the child.”
The 2-year-old was placed in the custody of Child Protective Services, multiple outlets report.
Gray and Alderman were arrested and booked into the Gregg County Jail on charges of abandonment/endangerment of a child, cruelty to non-livestock animals, and failure to identify/giving false information, per jail records.
