Insets, top to bottom: Jeffery Scanlan and Misty Scanlan (Henderson Police Department). Background: The home where their son was found in a feces-filled enclosure (KLAS).
A judge handed down the fate of two Nevada parents who admitted to locking their 11-year-old son who has autism in an enclosure “similar to a jail cell” for six years in a case uncovered when a truancy officer went to the home after the boy hadn’t shown up for school.
Jeffery Scanlan and Misty Scanlan pleaded guilty on Jan. 8 to a misdemeanor child neglect charge. On Wednesday, a judge sentenced them to a year of probation, online court records show. District Judge Jessica Peterson determined the Scanlans were a low risk of reoffending, which contributed to her decision to not give the couple jail time, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
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Defense attorney Michael Horvath told the newspaper that the result was a “fair resolution.” The Scanlans didn’t actually keep their son in a cage, defense attorneys contended, it was just more of an enclosure to keep the boy safe.”
“Obviously, the initial charges didn’t really show what the underlying facts were,” Horvath said, adding his clients “learned from this.”
As Law&Crime previously reported, the case came to light on April 23 when a truancy officer went to the house to check on the boy, who had been absent from school for over a week.
The truancy officer told police no one was answering the door, even though a child could be heard screaming and a gate rattling inside, according to the police report obtained by local CBS affiliate KLAS.
After about 40 minutes, Jeffery Scanlan answered the door and told police his children had been absent from school because they were sick, according to the report. When the officer asked if he could go in to check on the children, the defendant agreed. In the living room, the officer saw a large enclosure with metal bars and locked doors, “similar to a jail cell,” the report said.
In the enclosure was a young boy wearing only a diaper. The enclosure had feces on the floor and walls.
Misty Scanlan told police she had stopped cleaning the enclosure three weeks earlier, saying they had become “extremely busy.”
Jeffery Scanlan identified the boy as his son and said he has severe autism spectrum disorder. Three other children were inside, the report said. One child was hospitalized, and three others were taken by Child Protective Services and placed with family members, the report said.
The officer noted the house was in “extreme disarray” and smelled of feces. One bedroom had no furniture, holes in the wall, trash strewed about, feces on the walls and floor, and an exterior lock with no way to defeat it from inside the room, the report said.
The Scanlans told police they locked their “escape artist” daughter, who also has autism, in her room at bedtime and duct taped the top of her shirt to her diaper to prevent her from grabbing her feces. When police asked about why they didn’t get help for their children, the father told police they did not “know where to start” or “want strangers in [their] house,” Fox News reported, citing the police report.
“While Jeffery and Misty both indicated they were doing what they could with the situation that was in front of them, it was clear based on their statements that Jeffery and Misty had repeatedly failed to acquire or seek services for assistance with the struggles they experienced” with their children, police wrote, local NBC affiliate KSNV reported.
In a statement, Child Protective Services said the parents “chose repeatedly to place [their children] into potentially dangerous situations … and placed the two children into deplorable living conditions that directly threatened harm to their health.”
The agency added that while the couple indicated they were doing what they could with their situation, it was clear based on their statements that they “repeatedly failed to acquire or seek services for assistance with the struggles they experienced with [their children].”
Jason Kandel contributed to this report
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