Shenandoah, Iowa parents arrested keeping 4 year old boy with development issues in makeshift cage after boy manages to escape and is found wandering outside.
The parents of a 4 year old boy in Iowa are accused of having kept their four year old son in a ’makeshift cage,’ while instructing relatives to not let the child out while he was staying with them.
Dustin Carl Lee Perry and Lindsey Barbara Marie Hamilton, both 26, upon their arrest on Thursday were charged with neglect or abandonment of a dependent and child endangerment. They were booked into the Fremont County Jail without bond. Additional charges are pending.
The two parents were arrested after deputies found their four-year-old son with developmental disabilities alone at about 9 a.m. Thursday morning outside a home in Hamburg, Iowa, covered in filth and a mixture of both human and animal feces, the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
4 year old found wandering streets after managing to escape cage
Another child was found inside the property, and both children were transported to a hospital for evaluation.
Perry and Hamilton, both of Shenandoah, Iowa, had left their children with relatives, who they told to keep the four-year-old in the makeshift cage.
The cage, which deputies found in the home, was made out of a pack and play, a baby gate roof and zip ties. Deputies said that the child managed to escape the cage and left the home without waking anyone up before police coming across the wandering boy.
But there’s more.
A second homemade cage was found in the parents’ home in Shenandoah, where the child was allegedly kept in a walk-in closet.
The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services removed several children from the home in Hamburg.
The parents are being held in jail without bond while awaiting their first appearance before a judge.
