Adopted Kids Slept In Cages
However, 11 Children Said To Be Polite And Well-Behaved
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Play CBS Video Video Children Free From Cages CS News RAW: Huron County, Ohio Department of Job and Family Services official Erich Dumbeck held a press conference about 11 disabled children removed from adoptive parents.
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Video 11 Children Found In Cages Police found 11 children, with various disabilities, ranging in ages from 1 to 14 locked in small cages inside their Ohio home. The couple denied any wrongdoing.
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Video Ohio Children Slept In Cages An Ohio couple forced their 11 adopted children to sleep in cages, according to authorities. The children range in age from 1-14 and all suffer from disabilities, Sharyn Alfonsi reports.
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Boots, shoes, and clothing at the patio door of the home where authorities discovered that children were being kept in cages in Clarksfield Township, Ohio. (AP)
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The Clarksfield Township, Ohio, house where Huron County Sheriff deputies say they found 11 children — with various disabilities including autism — locked in cages equipped with alarms. (AP)
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Interactive Children In Danger Warning signs, state-by-state child services information and a history of child welfare reforms.
"The sheriff and I stood there for a few minutes and just kind of stared at what we were seeing. We were speechless," Sommers said.
No one answered the Gravelles' door Tuesday, and the gray, four-bedroom house was dark. A pig, roosters and other animals shared the yard outside Wakeman, a city of about 1,000 people 50 miles west of Cleveland.
The children have been placed with four foster families and were doing well, said Erich Dumbeck, director of the Huron County Department of Job and Family Services.
"We're still trying to figure out what happened in that home. We don't have any indication at this point that there was any abuse," Dumbeck said.
Sommers said a social worker investigating a complaint contacted authorities. Dumbeck would not discuss the complaint.
According to the search warrant, the cages had mats and the house smelled of urine. One boy said he slept in a cage for three years, Sommers said. A baby slept in a small bed, and two girls used mattresses
Deputies said they were called to the home last year when a 12-year-old boy was upset and ran away for several hours. He was found not far away.
Alfonsi reports that a child services official noted that because the kids weren't adopted locally, no one knew they were here.
The family has lived in Huron County for 10 years and the children were adopted through other counties and states, Dumbeck said. He said his agency was trying to determine how the adoptions were completed.
"I don't believe there were any caseworkers checking in with this family," he said. Reviews are ordered only when there is a complaint.
One of the children, a boy born with HIV, was adopted as an infant in 2001 through the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services, the agency's director Jim McCafferty said. For caring for him, the Gravelles received a subsidy of at least $500 a month.
The private agencies who reviewed the couple's home life before the adoption gave them "glowing reports," McCafferty said.
Leah Hunter, who lives two houses away, said she often saw the children walking down the road.
"They looked OK. They hardly ever wore shoes but I'm a country girl and for me that's normal," she said.
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