Three adults have been arrested after they locked three children in the attic for two years.
A 9-year-old girl and two boys, aged 11 and 12, were tortured, beaten with bats, and starved. They were rescued by police after the eldest managed to escape the horror home in Pennsylvania and alerted a stranger.
Their father, 32-year-old Todd Richter, his fiancé, 27-year-old Jennifer Yost, and her mother, 51-year-old Wendy Yost, have been arrested for child abuse.
According to police, the 12-year-old boy approached a stranger at a nearby school and said that his brother and sister were being held captive inside their home.
Police officers discovered the boy’s two emaciated siblings covered in bruises and cuts in the attic.
Weeks-long investigation had determined that the adults had locked the children in the attic for at least two years and deprived them of water and food.
The poor children were also beaten regularly with mallets, belts, wine bottles, and bats. They were also dragged down the stairs and held underwater in the bathtub.
The three adults are also accused of using a cat to torture the children by forcing the animal to scratch and claw them.
When cops raided the home, they said that a strong urine smell came from the area where the children were kept.
They also discovered containers filled with liquid feces and urine inside the attic.
“We’ve had certainly cases of child abuse, child sexual exploitation and things like that, but that these children endured this many years of this kind of treatment is beyond anything that I’ve seen,” said Minersville Police Chief Michael Combs.
“The only plus to it is that the children are now safe and getting treatment and won’t be put back in that environment.”
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