Henderson Parents Arrested After 11-year-old Kept In Makeshift ‘Jail Cell’ For 6 Years

[Sugar Cookie]

Two Henderson parents were arrested after an 11-year-old child diagnosed with autism was found in a makeshift ‘jail cell’ after being absent from school, according to police documents obtained by 8 News Now.

The welfare check was requested due to a truancy, or absence from school, issue involving a student. The truancy officer told police that when they knocked on the door, no one answered, but they could hear a child screaming and a gate rattling inside, according to an arrest report.

When police arrived, it was approximately 40 minutes before the door was answered by Jeffery Scanlan, 41. He told police his children had been absent from school because they were sick, the report stated.

When police asked Jeffery if they could check on the children, he agreed and led them inside, where police found an 11-year-old boy in a “large metal enclosure” with metal bars and locked doors, “similar to a jail cell,” according to the report.

The boy was wearing only a diaper and the enclosure had feces on the floors and walls, the report stated. Jeffery told police that the child was diagnosed with “severe Autism spectrum disorder.”

Three other children were in the home when police arrived. While police were at the home, Jeffery’s wife, Misty Scanlan, 46, got home from work.

Officers said the house was in “extreme disarray and smelled of feces,” the report stated. While searching the home, police found two bedrooms with little or no furniture with feces on the walls, ceilings, and floors. Both bedrooms had exterior locks with no way to open from the inside, according to the report.

One bedroom had a single mattress on the floor while the other bedroom had no furniture at all.

Jeffery told police that the child in the enclosure was “big and strong” and could be very aggressive, destroying the house, punching holes in the wall, and attempting to escape to neighbors’ houses.

Jeffery added that the child goes to school and “does well there, but struggles often at home,” the report stated.

He said the child “prefers” the enclosure to his bedroom and will sleep in it on a couch. He explained to police that he enclosure has two doors, one which is locked all the time and another which is tied shut with string because the child “has not figured out knots yet” and can’t open the door.

When asked if the child would be able to exit in an emergency, Jeffery said someone would have to let him out.

One of the children told police they believed the enclosure had been in the home for “approximately two years.” Jeffery later told police it was actually there for six.

Jeffery and Misty said one of their other children, who was also diagnosed with autism, was “an escape artist” so they would lock her in her room when it was time to sleep and duct tape the top of her shirt over her diaper so she could not grab feces from it when it had not been changed, the report stated.

Both Jeffery and Misty told police they received referrals from the child’s school, but had not pursued any for any of the children in the home because they did not “know where to start” or “want strangers in [their] house,” according to the report.

https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/henderson-parents-arrested-after-11-year-old-found-in-large-metal-enclosure/

 

[Crazy Cat Lady]

Feces on the ceiling?

 

[Busy Bee]

The explanation is nauseating! Much less being there! Unsanitary!

 

[Taishobee]

Caged wearing only diapers! That poor boy.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Thank goodness the school reported the truancy and social services did their job.

We have to also thank the stupidity of the parents being honest about how the kids are treated.

If they were receiving no type of financial aid for the two autistic children I will give them a pass on being reluctant to have anyone in their home.

However, if they were receiving on dime of aid then they knew what they were doing was wrong and the treatment of the children was abusive.

 

[runninfawn]

Thank goodness the school reported the truancy and social services did their job.

We have to also thank the stupidity of the parents being honest about how the kids are treated.

If they were receiving no type of financial aid for the two autistic children I will give them a pass on being reluctant to have anyone in their home.

However, if they were receiving on dime of aid then they knew what they were doing was wrong and the treatment of the children was abusive.

but how can people live in a stinky house is way beyond my understanding.... i know i had 2 young ones in diapers at the same time and way back then they were clothe diapers and yes i rinsed them and soaped then and rinsed again and did everything i could before putting them in the diaper pail to soak and all i could smell was dirty diapers and i was so worried when friends or family dropped in that my house stank

 

[Ali Click]

Thank goodness the school reported the truancy and social services did their job.

We have to also thank the stupidity of the parents being honest about how the kids are treated.

If they were receiving no type of financial aid for the two autistic children I will give them a pass on being reluctant to have anyone in their home.

However, if they were receiving on dime of aid then they knew what they were doing was wrong and the treatment of the children was abusive.

Pretty sure it's abusive and morally bankrupt whether they got food stamps or whatever or not.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

Pretty sure it's abusive and morally bankrupt whether they got food stamps or whatever or not.

Did I say it was not?