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Last updated on Thursday, December 4, 2014
(ANDERSON) - Anderson Police are calling it one of the worst cases of neglect they’ve ever seen: a 15-year-old teenage girl weighing what a normal five-year-old weighs.
WTHR reports the girl was brought to the hospital Monday, severely malnourished, weighing around 35 pounds, and covered in feces.
Now her guardian, 58-year-old Steve Sells, faces a preliminary charge of child neglect. Also Tuesday, investigators said Sells' wife Joetta Sue Sells, 54, would be jailed after questioning on charges of neglect of a dependent and battery. That's a Level 5 felony. Other arrests in the case are possible.
Police say the 15-year-old has mental disabilities and lived with her family in the 3400 block of Forest Terrace Drive in Anderson. On Tuesday, detectives removed bags of evidence from the home where they say the girl suffered from severe malnutrition.
In the probable cause affidavit, the responding officer wrote that he saw the girl lying on a cot and receiving oxygen by a nurse. The girl was so thin that "her bones were protruding more than her flesh, and there were also feces on her feet." Police described the girl's condition to that of a Holocaust victim.
Sells told police he was the court-appointed guardian because his daughter, the girl's biological mother, had abandoned her. Sells showed officers a letter dated from 2011 stating that the girl had a chromosome disorder that prevented her from gaining weight.
Sells told police the girl had fallen and had gotten worse over the past few days.
Police say they found an upstairs room with a lock at the top of the door, and a four-year-old child in the home explained to detectives how the girl was locked in her room day and night. The four-year-old also told them how the teen would stick her fingers around the door trying to get out. Police say feces covered everything in the room and they also found blood on the floor. There was little in the room besides a filthy mattress and a bucket. There was also a bowl of oatmeal. The child also told police that Sells would sometimes drag the teen by hair hair.
Sells told police he locked the girl into her room to protect himself, insisting that the girl was very strong and that she approached him with a knife.
Police say Sells stated he weighs around 225 pounds. The girl weighed just 35-40 pounds.
Sells said he hadn't taken the girl for a medical exam since 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.
Thirty-five pounds at 15 years old - police say that's the average weight of a 5-year-old. They say the teen was brought to St. Vincent Regional Hospital in Anderson by other family members. She was covered in feces, severely malnourished and near death.
Doctors, noticing the danger, contacted police and had the girl flown to Peyton Manning Children's Hospital in Indianapolis.
Sells is on a 72-hour hold at the Madison County Jail. The prosecutor's office is expected to file formal charges on Friday.
Police say the case is an active and ongoing investigation.
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