SHENANDOAH, Iowa (KMTV) — Neighbors in Shenandoah and Hamburg, Iowa say they have questions about how a shocking case of child abuse and neglect could go unnoticed for so long. The Shenandoah chief of police has questions about it, too.
- Authorities allege a four-year-old with special needs was being locked into a makeshift cage at his grandparents' home in Hamburg.
- “It was definitely top five, top three of what I’ve seen since I’ve been doing this,” said Shenandoah Police Chief Josh Gray.
- The Shenandoah Police were investigating an animal welfare case connected to the parents and maternal grandparents of the four-year-old when they heard from the Fremont County Sheriff's office. The four-year-old, who was staying with the father's family in Hamburg, was discovered wandering the street. Deputies suspected child abuse and neglect.
- The parents and both sets of grandparents are facing multiple charges connected to the case.
- SEE MORE |Grandparents charged in ongoing Hamburg child abuse investigation; deputies allege 4-year-old locked in cage
- PREVIOUS |Fremont County authorities allege family locked 4-year-old with disabilities in makeshift cage
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Neighbors in Shenandoah and Hamburg, Iowa say they have questions about how a shocking case of child abuse and neglect could go unnoticed for so long. I'm your Southwest Iowa neighborhood reporter Katrina Markel. I'm in Shenandoah because I just spoke with the police chief who told me he also has questions.
“It was definitely top five, top three of what I’ve seen since I’ve been doing this,” said Shenandoah Police Chief Josh Gray.
He says investigators were preparing to ask for a warrant to search the home of Dustin Perry, Lindsey Hamilton and her parents, for suspected animal abuse and neglect, when deputies from Fremont County asked them for help with a related case.
“When we heard from Fremont County and they came here to Shenandoah and asked us to assist them, is when we knew about the kids,” Gray said.
Perry and Hamilton's four-year-old son was discovered wandering alone in Hamburg. According to police, he was staying with Perry's parents and was kept in a makeshift cage.
Gray tells me neighbors complained about the animals living in the Shenandoah residence and police were working with the Animal Rescue League of Iowa.
"About three weeks we'd been working with them,” said the chief. “The next day we were set up. We were going to be doing a search a warrant on the house,tTo get into the house on behalf of the animals, and we knew there was going to kids in there; and the possibility of child endangerment was going to happen at that point, too."
The Fremont County Sheriff told me on July 26, his office received a complaint about Perry’s parents, but when deputies visited their Hamburg home the children and the makeshift cage weren’t there.
Gray said after the parents were arrested in July his department looked back at their records.
“We pulled it up after all this came about, after the Fremont County deal, making sure we didn’t have none of them. There was nothing that we had on file,” he said.
Today we learned that the four-year-old's grandparents in Hamburg, Elvin Culley and Martha Perry-Culley, were arrested on Friday and charged with neglect and abandonment, and child endangerment.
Law enforcement officials say if neighbors suspect abuse, they should report it and not assume authorities already know.
There were multiple generations living in the Hamilton’s Shenandoah home and authorities say the kids and the animals are all in safe places now.
