Henderson Police have arrested a couple after an 11-year-old child diagnosed with autism was found in a makeshift ‘jail cell’ after being reported absent from school.
A Nevada couple was arrested after police found a boy with autism locked in a "makeshift jail cell," and their three other children living in a decaying home that wreaked from "feces," according to arrest reports obtained by KLAS.
On April 23rd, at approximately 10:15 a.m., the City of Henderson Police Department responded to a home in reference to a truancy issue involving a student.
When officers arrived at the scene to check the welfare of the student, they discovered an 11-year-old was being contained within a large metal enclosure and the home was described to have inhospitable living conditions.
Henderson Detectives identified the suspects as 46-year-old Misty Scanlan and 41-year-old Jeffery Scanlan.
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The arrest report stated that a Clark County School District police officer told Henderson police that no one answered when they knocked on the Scanlan family's door, but said they could hear a child screaming and what they described as a "gate rattling."
Nearly 40 minutes went by before Jeffery Scanlan answered the door and then told police that his children were not in school because they were sick, the report said.
Once police were allowed inside the home, officers found an 11-year-old boy, wearing nothing but a diaper, in a "large metal enclosure" with metal bars and locked doors, "similar to a jail cell," according to the report. The enclosure also reportedly had feces all over the floors and walls.
Police stated that it was not clear how long the child had been kept in the cage, but Jeffery reportedly told investigators that they had installed the enclosure about six years ago because of the child’s behavior as he was diagnosed with "severe Autism spectrum disorder," according to the report.
Jeffery also indicated that the child goes to school and "does well there, but often struggles at home," the report read.
While searching the home, police found two bedrooms with little or no furniture with feces on the walls, ceilings, and floors. Officers added that the house was in "extreme disarray and smelled of feces," the report stated.
Two of the other children reportedly told police that they tried to clean the "makeshift jail cell" and house once a week, but that it had been several weeks since they last cleaned.
Both bedrooms also only had exterior locks with no way to open from the inside, according to the report.
The Scanlan's told police one of their other children, who was also diagnosed with autism, was "an escape artist" so they would lock her in her room when it was time to sleep and duct tape the top of her shirt over her diaper to prevent her from grabbing her feces from it when it had not been changed, the report read.
When asked why they had not sought out proper resources for their children with autism, Jeffery told police that they did not "know where to start" or "want strangers in [their] house", adding that the programs did not accept their health insurance, the report stated.
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The 11-year-old boy was taken to a local hospital and Child Protective Services took the other three children into their custody.
Police said both parents were taken into custody and booked into the Henderson Detention Center for one count of felony child neglect.
"Based upon my initial observations," a detective wrote in the report, "there was reason to believe that the children in the house were not receiving proper care and had been placed in an environment where their health was at risk of being harmed and may suffer unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering as a result of neglect."
According to court records, the two posted bail on Wednesday morning and their next court appearance is scheduled for May 14.
Police are urging anyone with information on this case to call the Henderson Police Department at 702-267-4911.
