According to multiple media, after a German couple living in Spain was arrested, their three children were locked in what officials called “House of Terror.”
The Oviedo Police Department said that it was Monday, April 28, and three children were rescued from a house near Oviedo, Spain on Monday, April 28, according to a translation report by local media El Comercio, El Mundo and Spanish newspaper ABC.
The parents of the children — identified as a 53-year-old German man and his 48-year-old American wife, who also owns a German passport — were arrested and charged with domestic violence on charges of habitual psychological abuse and abandonment of the child, according to police. Exit and El Mundo reported that the children were 8-year-old twins and 10-year-old twins.
According to El Comercio, the investigation into the family began after a neighbor filed a complaint on April 14 about a child who lived at home without school. This prompted Oviedo police to investigate, which collected testimony from other neighbors and house records.
“Initially, nothing caught people’s attention,” said Oviedo Police Chief Javier Lozano in a press conference in the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero.
However, when they further studied the investigation, things changed.
Police found that the house had been rented out by the family in October 2021 and only the father’s name was registered at home.
Officials also witnessed their father leaving only to pick up delivery and emails from the grocery store, and neighbors told police that they had not seen their family leave their home since December 2021, while El Comcercio and El Mundo had not left their home.
It was reported that when the officer approached the house on April 28, the father “agreed” to let them in. Officials who went to the home pointed out that they saw parents wearing three masks before their children and then let them in.
After entering the room, the officer found the house full of garbage, a large amount of drugs and masks, and other items, and the officer believed that “obviously unhygienic conditions may put the health and safety of minors at risk.”
Lozano reportedly called the house a “Home of Terror” at a press conference, and ABC reported that children have also lived in feces since 2021.
Police also found the children sleeping in cribs, defamating monsters and dolls. The officer noted that the children did not appear to be sick, but were “dirty” because they were left at home.
“The kids are in a bad condition. It’s definitely outrageous,” an agent told El Mundo. “There is no malnutrition because they are fed. But they are also dirty… [and] Totally out of reality, not just because they didn’t go to school. When we took them out of the house and into the garden, they wouldn’t even go out, they saw the snails, crazy and frightened. ”
The three children were taken to the National Human Rights Center for medical evaluation and then sent to custody of the Ministry of Welfare, which placed them in the juvenile center.
As of Wednesday, April 30, their parents were detained without bail.
“We are all affected by the impact of Kuved syndrome and the pandemic, and we can speculate on what led to family life for so long,” Lozano said in a press conference.
