California parents charged for 'torture' after police find 10 children living amid feces and garbage
A couple from Fairfield, California was charged on Monday after police officers found 10 children living in their home in "horrible" conditions.
The officers said that the children were tortured and were made to live amidst feces and garbage, according to reports.
The officials had launched an investigation into the case on March 31, after police brought a 12-year-old, who was reported missing, back to the house on 2200 block of Fieldstone Court in Fairfield.
A police statement released on Monday stated that they had found the boy sleeping under a bush in the yard of a nearby home, according to reports.
The police officers, after they entered the couple's residence, discovered that nine of the couple's other children were living in "unsafe and unsanitary" condition, reports state. The 10 children ranged from 4 months of age to 11 years.
All the 10 children were reportedly taken into protective custody by Solano County Child Welfare services in March and were subsequently placed in other family members' care, reports state.
The children's mother, 30-year-old Ina Rogers, was arrested that same evening when police officers entered her house and was booked into Solano County Jail for child neglect.
Their father, 29-year-old Jonathan Allen, was also subsequently arrested and was reportedly charged with nine counts of felony torture and six counts of felony child abuse, according to the Washington Post.
The officers described the disturbing condition of the couple's home on Monday for the first time, stating that the house was littered with human and animal feces, urine, garbage and rotten food. The police statement also added that heaps of debris had blocked certain areas of the house and the children were also subjected to emotional and physical abuse.
The police statement also added that the couple's neighbors did not know there were 10 children living inside the Rogers' house.
Reports state that during the six weeks since their mother's arrest, eight out of 10 children told police officials of multiple incidents of intentional abuse and some of them dated back to 2014.
Some of the details revealed by the children included puncture wounds inflicted on them, burns, bruising and injuries which were consistent with being shot with an airsoft gun, according to police.
The police statement added that the children's account of the abuse is what led the officials to arrest their father Allen. He reportedly appeared in court on Monday and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Salano County's chief deputy district attorney, Sharon Henry, said that a judge on Monday ordered him held in lieu of over $5 million bail. Henry added that there is a "good chance" Rogers could face additional charges in the case as the investigation continues.
Henry, during a news conference, said that the alleged abuse was done with "sadistic purpose" and that "based upon what the children stated in their interviews, we believe torture occurred in this house."
Fairfield police Lt. Greg Hurlbut on Monday said that all the children were still under the custody of other family members and that their condition appeared to be "improving." The children, till now, were reportedly home-schooled.
Hurlbut also added that as a police officer, he had not had a case in decades "where we charged someone with torture of their own children if that tells you something."
Rogers, however, was released after posting a $10,000 bail according to the Associated Press. She reportedly gave the reporters a tour of her four-bedroom house and said that she and her husband both came from broken homes and wanted a large family.
The mother of the children reportedly told the AP that she works the graveyard shift as an EKG technician at a heart monitoring company and that Allen is a tattoo artist.