Question:
It is so hard to think that this was done in this country. It sounds like
it came straight out of a horror movie.
Father charged after wife, sons found living in squalor
POSTED: 8:57 p.m. EDT, May 11, 2007
CHESTER, South Carolina (AP) -- For nearly four years, a South Carolina man held his wife and two sons captive in a house infested with maggots and human waste, authorities said.
The boys slept on a bare mattress as their mother was kept in a drug-induced stupor in a house that was decrepit except for a tidy one-room illegal gambling parlor run by Danny William Dove, police said.
Police found maggots infesting the refrigerator. Human waste and used toilet paper littered the bathroom floor, and the house smelled like a dead animal, according to police photographs and authorities who visited the home after Dove was arrested this week.
The living room was covered in trash and upturned furniture, the kitchen's cabinets were falling apart, and dirty clothing was piled in waist-high heaps.
"There was chaos everywhere," Chester County Sheriff's Detective Scott Thompson said Thursday. "I don't think we'll ever really determine how it happened -- how you get to live like that. I think he got so wrapped up in drugs and wanting to control everything, nothing else mattered."
The young boys, ages 4 and 8, did not go to school. Police say that they rarely were allowed out of the house and that a video camera monitored their room and the doors to the home. The boys' own grandmother says they are hard to understand unless they are cursing.
Dove, 45, plied his wife, Tamara, with prescription painkillers, cocaine and crack, and forbade her to go outside, police said. Thompson said he did not expect the 37-year-old mother would be lucid enough to be interviewed for weeks.
"People don't understand why she just doesn't leave," Thompson said. "But with a little intimidation and a lot of drug use, this is what they grew to know as normal life."
Dove was charged with two counts of distribution of a controlled substance, two counts of criminal conspiracy, operating a gambling establishment and two counts of child neglect. He remained in jail Thursday without bail. If convicted, he faces up to 40 years in prison.
But Dove's mother said that her son held no one hostage and that his wife was the root of the couple's drug addiction.
"She's driven my son crazy," Helaine Young said in an interview at her home.
Young said she threw up when she visited the home with police, her first visit since Christmas 2005, when she said she left after being threatened by her daughter-in-law.
Young said her son was once a wealthy owner of several convenience stores, paying for anything his wife requested, including baby sitters and house cleaners. Her son installed the cameras for the family's security when he renovated the home in a rural town near the North Carolina line, she said. The pair met about 13 years ago, Young said.
Young, who has taken care of the couple's 12-year-old son since he was an infant, said she has asked the Department of Social Services repeatedly over the last six years to investigate.
"We have had reports in the past, and the nature of the reports are currently under review," agency spokeswoman Marilyn Matheus said. "It's too early to tell what exactly happened when."
Dove's oldest child, 20-year-old Brittney Dove, said she and a friend used to take care of the boys when she stayed in the home. But she last saw them about three years ago, she said.
"She would not get out of the bed," Brittney said of the boys' mother. "It disgusts me that he's in jail. I'm not condoning what he did. There's no excuse for the child neglect. But she should be there, too. He honestly loved her. He was nothing but good to her."
Thompson said the boys were socially inept.
"The oldest one can communicate, but it's on a 3- to 4-year-old, broken-English level," he said. "The 4-year-old jibber-jabbers. It's rambling stuff."
Young said the two knew how to curse because that's what they heard at home.
"The cuss words were the plainest words you can hear from them," she said, recalling phone conversations with the boys.
The boys are living safely with a relative, Thompson said.
"Maybe now, we've given these kids the chance of a normal life," Thompson said.


Answer:
How sad. Poor kids. Hopefully they will get them in school and they can start getting an education. I wonder why they did not investigate earlier if numerous complaints were made. 4 years is an awful long time to live that way.


Answer:
"We have had reports in the past, and the nature of the reports are currently under review," agency spokeswoman Marilyn Matheus said. "It's too early to tell what exactly happened when."
How long does it take for these people to do at least a door knock check ???? I think a lot of the blame should be attributed to the Dept of Soc Serv. The least they could have done was to take a look.
This is so sad what happened to those poor kids.
Wom


Answer:

Another story that makes us all wonder what goes on in this world we live in. If there are people living like this that we're hearing about, how many more are out there? It's very scary


Answer:
Originally Posted by Daisy and Delilah

Another story that makes us all wonder what goes on in this world we live in. If there are people living like this that we're hearing about, how many more are out there? It's very scary
There's been a few here in Australia like that over the years to.
One case was so bad, that the toddlers toes actually joined together with skin..... the baby had not been washed in so long....the feet took on a webbed appearance. And when they found the child (I think about 1.5 YO), he was in his crib, and hardly ever had been taken out of it.
When they arrested the parents, they sort of shrugged as if to say "What have we done wrong ??" They were actually retarded.
Terrible stuff.
Wom


Answer:
Originally Posted by wombat2u2004
There's been a few here in Australia like that over the years to.
One case was so bad, that the toddlers toes actually joined together with skin..... the baby had not been washed in so long....the feet took on a webbed appearance. And when they found the child (I think about 1.5 YO), he was in his crib, and hardly ever had been taken out of it.
When they arrested the parents, they sort of shrugged as if to say "What have we done wrong ??" They were actually retarded.
Terrible stuff.
Wom
Isn't there some way we can control who has children and who doesn't?


Answer:
Originally Posted by Daisy and Delilah
Isn't there some way we can control who has children and who doesn't?
It would be nice to think so, but....the law won't allow it.
Wom


Answer:
When I was a young girl, around 6 or 7, not quite sure, my mother went to Mexico with my younger brother and sisters dad. She left us in the care of their dads mother, who seemed pretty OK to me, until my mother left. She locked my older brother and I in the bedroom for two weeks. We weren't aloud to shower, play, go to school etc. We were fed once a day, a bowl of beans and one tortilla. One glass of water. Finally the school called social services wondering where we were. They ended up taking us away and putting us in Orangewood, a children orphanage type thing. Who knows what my mom thought of that women afterwards, but we never saw her again. Not that I was dissapointed. Thank goodness my mom was only gone for two weeks. You wouldn't think a relative would do something like that! Eventually we were given back to my mother. So these things do happen everyday. I'm just thankful someone had the right of mind to call and find out what happened to us.


Answer:
Originally Posted by lizbud
"Maybe now, we've given these kids the chance of a normal life," Thompson said.
I wonder how likely that is? Man, talk about a bad start. Very sad. I'm really amazed it went on for so long without someone intervening.


Answer:
OMG That is awful. I know my mom wouldent do that to me.


Answer:
He was nothing but good to her? YEAH right!! I don't know about the lady being bad, but not allowing your wife outside and jacking her up with drugs, yeah that's "good" to her. I feel really bad for those kids, 8 years old and cursing? Hopefully, they will be OK now that they are safe with normal people.


Answer:
Originally Posted by Maltese_Love
He was nothing but good to her? YEAH right!! I don't know about the lady being bad, but not allowing your wife outside and jacking her up with drugs, yeah that's "good" to her.
My thoughts exactly! But you know how some mothers are...their son couldn't possibly have done anything wrong.