A couple have been arrested for alleged child abuse after police raided a ‘house of horrors’ in Spain where they found three boys that had lived there alone for four years.
Spanish police said the house was in a disgusting state, with hoards of rubbish and mountains of accumulated medicines. Surfaces were covered in filthy pet excrement and the family also had a cat with a massive tumour.
The children, two eight-year-old twin boys and their ten-year-old brother, were found wearing nappies and discovered they were forced to sleep in caged beds during their ordeal.
The ‘house of horrors’, as investigators dubbed it, was discovered in Oviedo, the capital city of Asturias in northern Spain.
The three young boys were freed, having apparently lived solely in the house for four years since the Covid crisis.
The motivation of the parents for keeping the children locked in their own home is not yet known, but the youngsters were all wearing three face masks each when they were discovered.
The American mother, 48, reportedly told police that she and her German husband, 58, thought it was the best way to keep them safe.
In shocking scenes, the children were kept out of school and forbidden to leave the house. Doors were locked and the windows were permanently closed. The children were not even allowed to go into the garden.
Spanish police said the house was in a disgusting state, with hoards of rubbish and mountains of accumulated medicines
Police said when the children were freed, one of them knelt on the grass and ‘touched it with amazement’.
Over the years, the children were kept so hidden that even neighbours did not realise they were in the house.
The husband and wife duo are now being held in custody without bail pending further investigations following the discovery of the children.
The operation and investigation into the children began on April 14th after a resident of the area raised the alarm.
The woman had heard voices that sounded like children coming from the house although she had never seen anyone leave the home to play or go to school.
But, after several days of surveillance, the investigators were clear that more than one person had to live there.
This was indicated by the movements that could be sensed through the few windows that were not closed, and the number of boxes of food orders that the man brought into the home.
After deciding to storm the property, agents could not believe what they found when they entered the house.
The minors were barefoot, wearing diapers and still sleeping in cribs. When they wanted to take them out of the building, they did not even have shoes of their size, since they had not been bought shoes for years.
The chief commissioner of the Local Police of Oviedo, Francisco Javier Lozano, gave a press conference on Wednesday in which he explained the details of the operation that saw the arrest of the couple at 2.45pm on Monday.
At the moment, the reasons that led this family to live in captivity since 2021 and in unsanitary conditions inside the Asturian villa are unknown
The initial search of the house was made more difficult because Spain had been plunged into darkness by an electricity outrage.
When police knocked on the front door, the father answered but asked the officers to wait for a few minutes so the children could put their masks on.
One officer told the Spanish press: ‘They were very scared and around the mother, who told us all the time that the little ones had serious pathologies and that we should not approach them.
‘They had three masks each on top of each other. They were oblivious to any contact with reality.’
At the moment, the reasons that led this family to live in captivity since 2021 and in unsanitary conditions inside the Asturian villa are unknown.
The children spoke mostly in English. After being evaluated at the Central University Hospital of Asturias, they have been placed under the guardianship of the Government of the Principality.
It is not ruled out that their parents will be charged with crimes of habitual abuse, abandonment of minors, and against fundamental rights.
As a summary of the operation, the chief commissioner of the Local Police of Oviedo, Francisco Javier López Lozano said: ‘We have dismantled the house of horrors’.
