Insets: Mateo Luna and Stephanie Passley (Butler County). Background: The trailer where Mateo Luna and Stephanie Passley allegedly lived with their children in filth and squalor (KFVS).
A Missouri couple allegedly forced their children to live in a trailer crawling with “hundreds of black flies and cockroaches” on top of mounds of rotten food and human waste — conditions so vile that at least one of the kids was sleeping on an entertainment center “to get away” from everything, according to police.
“The entire floor of the residence throughout the house was covered in garbage, rotting food and other trash,” according to the probable cause affidavit for Mateo Luna, 27, and his girlfriend Stephanie Passley, 26, who are each charged with four counts of child abuse and neglect. They have four children between the ages of 8 months and 9 years old, police say.
“To be honest, I don’t cry a whole lot at some of these cases,” said Butler County Sheriff’s Department Investigator Eddie Holloway in an interview with local CBS and The CW affiliate KFVS. “I cried last night thinking about that little boy sleeping on that entertainment center,” he told the outlet.
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According to the probable cause affidavit, authorities went to Passley and Luna’s trailer in Neelyville on Monday to conduct a “well-being check on multiple children” after receiving a report about the alleged filth and squalor.
Holloway was one of the first responders and detailed what he saw in the affidavit.
“The living room of the residence was completely covered in trash, rotting food, debris, and soiled clothing,” Holloway said. “The residence smelled of rotting food and human waste. … The kitchen sink and counter were full of dirty dishes, rotting food, and other debris.”
To make things even worse, the temperature inside the residence was between 86.5 and 88 degrees while cops were there, according to the affidavit, and there was allegedly no running water. A door lock on one of the children’s doors appeared to have been altered to change the direction of the lock, Holloway said.
Passley allegedly told police that her children often try to “escape from the residence during the evening” and due to her living by railroad tracks, she tries to prevent them from exiting the residence “when they are supposed to be sleeping,” per the affidavit.
Asked by KFVS how long the children were living in conditions like these, Holloway told the outlet: “Our best guess from what the little kid, the little girl, was telling us this has been going on for about two years,” he said. “I just don’t understand how a person could live like that and have their children in that. It just breaks my heart.”
