A theme in the investigation of the 16 children rescued this week from a southeastern Ohio home is the shock expressed in how the situation went unnoticed for some four years.
Authorities and NBC4 are asking a number of questions after the discovery of the children who allegedly were kept isolated in a 12-by-12 room inside of a Vinton County home in Hamden, a village of about 700 people.
Sheriff’s deputies went there Tuesday to serve a warrant for a “parallel case” involving one of the four adults living in the home. Investigators were not prepared for what they found – 16 children, who Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson described as “almost feral,” ranging in age from 18 months to 18 years, living in a small room of a five-room, one-bathroom home.
“I have never seen anything like what I saw today,” Wilson said Wednesday. “It really looked third world. It is not something we are used to seeing in America. I cannot get the smell off of me.”
