A woman and her boyfriend in Milwaukee have been hit with federal charges alleging they imprisoned two children in their home for years, CBS 58 reported.
Katie Koch, 34, who is the mother of the children, is facing four felony counts and two misdemeanors connected to child neglect and false imprisonment. Her boyfriend, Joel Manke, 38, is facing four felony counts.
Prosecutors say a neighbor witnessed the children, who are seven and eight-years-old, looking through a shattered window in the house before climbing up on an air-conditioning unit and jumping down into the yard, then walking down the street naked.
A child witness said the children "were acting like cavemen, like they had never seen the sun before." Another neighbor who saw the children said they were acting as if they had "never been outside before. If they have been, it's been a very long time."
"They were just walking different. Their hair looked like it had never been brushed, never been cut. They didn't know the outside existed," the witness said, adding that she kept an eye on the children as her husband called 911.
In court this Monday, prosecutors described living conditions in the home like "something out of a horror movie."
The children were allegedly confined to one room their entire lives, with boarded up windows and a door that was locked from the outside. Police called it "a terrible hoarding situation" and they could not see the floor. "...the smell of feces and urine filled the home. Trash was also piled outside the children's room, which locked from the outside; inside, the walls were smeared with feces," CBS 19's report stated.
Read the full report at CBS 19.
