Left: Dustin Carl Lee Perry. Right: Lindsey Barbara Marie Hamilton (Fremont County Sheriff’s Office)
A mom and dad in Iowa are behind bars after they forced their 4-year-old developmentally disabled to stay inside a “makeshift cage,” cops say.
Fremont County Sheriff Kevin Aistrope said in a press release that deputies received a report shortly before 9 a.m. Thursday about a small child alone along the road in the 1700 block of Washington Street in Hamburg, which is in southwest Iowa near the border with Missouri. When deputies arrived, they allegedly discovered the child “covered in filth and a mixture of both human and animal feces.” They found another child in the home and took both to the hospital for evaluation, Aistrope said.
According to a criminal complaint, Dustin Carl Lee Perry and Lindsey Barbara Marie Hamilton, both 26, left the children in the care of grandparents with the direction to keep the 4-year-old locked down.
“Deputies located the cage in the home constructed out of a pack and play, a baby gate roof, and zip ties,” Aistrope said.
The child was unable to stand inside the cage causing a “hazardous condition” and exposing the child to danger, deputies allege. There was also a second cage in a walk-in closet, deputies said. At some point, the child reportedly escaped from the cage and left the home without waking the grandparents.
Perry and Hamilton are facing charges of neglect or abandonment of a dependent person, a felony, and child endangerment, an aggravated misdemeanor. Deputies took them to the Fremont County Jail where they remain without bond. Authorities say more charges are pending in the case.
The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services responded to the scene and removed several children, Aistrope said.
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