Pa. parents charged with endangerment after children found living with rats, locked fridge
A mother and father are facing felony charges, and their seven neglected children are with social services, after authorities in Bucks County, Pa., found the kids living in a filthy trailer among caged animals and with a padlocked fridge.
Shane William Robertson, 47, and Crystal Robertson, 37, were each charged with seven felony counts of endangering the welfare of children after the kids were found in “deplorable living conditions,” police said.
Cops first encountered three of the children after they broke into an abandoned trailer in West Rockhill Township on April 23, the Pennridge Regional Police Department said in a statement Thursday. Officers brought the kids back home next door, where they found the parents.
Crystal Robertson told police the fridge had been locked because the children, who she characterized as “garbage disposals with legs,” had been “stealing” food, according to an affidavit obtained by WPVI-TV.
Police returned with child services and discovered four more children “hidden in a rear bedroom,” they said in a statement. The seven kids ranged in age from 4 to 16.
Two of the children had hair that was so matted, their heads had to be shaved and one of them was infested with maggots, according to authorities. Several kids needed eyeglasses, and one needed “extensive dental treatment” for cavities.
None had been to school, and their “basic knowledge” was so lacking that they didn’t know their birthdays, police said. “Additionally, the children exhibited social anxiety and disclosed that they did not like being in public or around other people,” officials said.
They were brought to a hospital for evaluation and found to be “clinically underweight and malnourished,” according to cops.
In one room, police found two dozen caged rats, and in another, feces littered the floor, the affidavit stated.
“There was also a bad odor … and several bugs,” the affidavit read, according to CNN, along with “two dogs, two turtles, two rabbits, snakes, toads and a four-foot reptile.”
The family had only recently moved to the area, a Pennridge Regional Police Department spokesman told the Daily News, so there was no way to determine whether they had been on social services’ radar previously.
“They were usually running around in bare feet, same clothes every day,” a neighbor told WFMZ-TV, noting of the mother: “Maybe once a week she’d be out with the lizard and she would just stand there and the lizard would walk away because she had it on the leash.”
The parents posted bail and the investigation is ongoing.
