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Last updated on Wednesday, December 3, 2014
(ANDERSON) - Court documents paint a disturbing picture of a child neglect case in Madison County.
According to documents obtained, a 15-year-old girl was kept locked away from the world as she lived in filth with inadequate heat and food.
The girl's grandfather, Steve Sells, 58, was arrested Monday night.
When police arrived, they said the girl was so thin that bones were protruding from her skin. She was flown to Peyton Manning Children's Hospital because of her condition.
Sells, is the girl's legal guardian because his daughter had abandoned her.
Sells told police the girl had a chromosome problem in her brain that caused her to have health problems and said she'd fallen Monday and a few days ago, causing her condition to worsen.
During a search of the home, investigators found an upstairs room with a lock at the top of the door. Inside they found a mattress, space heater, blankets, a bowl with oatmeal and a bucket.
Police noticed blood on the floor and "feces on everything in the room," court documents said.
A 4-year-old child who lives in the home told police that the 15-year-old girl was locked in the room and would sometimes "stick her fingers out around the door trying to get out."
Another child said Sells would lock the door "during the day and nights" and that the girl was left in the room with inadequate heat. That child described Sells "picking up (the girl) by her hair and dragging her."
Sells' wife told detectives that her husband locked the girl in the room. When asked about it, Sells told police he locked her away "to protect himself" and said "she was very strong, and that he would have to squeeze (her) arm because she would approach him with a knife."
Police noted that the girl weighs less than 35 pounds while Sells said he weighs between 200 and 225 pounds.
Sells told police he hadn't taken the girl to a medical exam since January 2012 and that her Medicaid ran out a year ago. He said Medicaid paid for the girl's nutritional supplement, but he hadn't had it since her Medicaid coverage ran out.
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