Couple charged after six-year-old boy is found naked and locked in a dog cage in Philadelphia – with two young girls outside in the rain
- Michelle Campbell, 30, and Paul Weber, 31, are charged in the horrific crime
- Charges are endangering the welfare of a child and reckless endangerment
- The children were taken to a local hospital for evaluation
A couple has been charged after a six-year-old boy was found naked and locked inside a dog cage in a Philadelphia home – and two young girls wearing diapers were found wandering outside in the rain.
Michelle Campbell, 30, and Paul Weber, 31, are charged with endangering the welfare of a child and recklessly endangering a person, Sargent Eric Gripp with the Philadelphia Police Department told CBS Philadelphia News.
A concerned neighbor alerted police after hearing screams around 1pm on Thursday in a residential Philadelphia neighborhood.
When officers arrived, they found the two female children – ages 4 and 5 – outside the home. Once they gained entry, they found the little boy locked inside the dog cage, with a blanket and pillow. A zip tie had been used to secure the gate shut.
Investigators said a woman inside the home and mother of at least one of the three children was taken to the Special Victims Unit where she was being interviewed by police. She has not yet been charged.
Michelle Campbell, 30, (pictured) was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and recklessly endangering a person, a police spokesperson told CBS Philadelphia News
Paul Weber, 30, was slapped with the same charges as Campbell in the heinous crime
A concerned neighbor alerted police after hearing screams around 1pm on Thursday at 4200 block of Glenview Street in the North East Philadelphia neighborhood
Police are also searching for the father of the children as the investigation continues.
An elderly woman in a wheelchair and a 40-year-old man were also found inside the home, according to officials, the news outlet reported.
Police believe the 80-year-old woman is the grandmother or great grandmother of the children and the adult male is an uncle with intellectual disabilities.
The children did not appear to be injured but were taken to a hospital for an evaluation and then will be in the care of DHS, officials said.
Police said two other children that live at the home were in school at the time, NBC Miami reported.
A close-up of the Philadelphia home where a young boy was found locked in a dog cage and two other youngsters were discovered outside the home
Neighbor Hector Perez found the children when he came home from work and was horrified by what he saw.
‘They have Pampers on. They have no shirts, no pants, they have no shoes. They’re screaming, it’s raining, it’s cold,’ Perez told Action 6 News.
‘They’re screaming for their mother and father.’
The Department of Human Services has been to the home before, a neighbor said, the news outlet reported.
‘Due to State confidentiality laws, DHS cannot comment whether or not a family has any current or past DHS involvement,’ the department said in a statement to Action News.
Others said the boy may have autism though police could not confirm at this time, NBC Miami reported.
‘We don’t know entirely everything that’s going on here,’ the police spokesperson said.
‘We have a long investigation ahead of us. But obviously we don’t live in a world where under any situation whatsoever we should have a child inside of a cage or young children outside standing in the rain.’
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