Pittsburgh couple facing child endangerment charges after children found living in squalor
Three children are now in the hands of child protective services, a man is in custody, and police are searching for a woman after a domestic incident call turned into a child endangerment situation.
According to the criminal complaint provided to KDKA-TV, Pittsburgh police officers were called to a home in the 800 block of Mt. Pleasant Street for reports of a man who had been pepper-sprayed, but once they arrived, they discovered the home was in a state of disrepair.
Police identified the man as Edward Wilson as he was sitting on the couch in pain from being pepper-sprayed. He told police that he and his partner, Tiffany Bates, had been in an argument, and Bates left the home. He also said that he had pepper-sprayed himself.
In the living room with Wilson were two children, a one-year-old and a 10-year-old. He told police there was a third child in the house, a four-year-old who was not in the room.
Due to children being in the home, police did a protective sweep of the home and found that the home was in poor condition.
In the basement, they found numerous cats and clutter throughout, and a door open that would allow the cats to come and go as they pleased. On the second floor, they found the room that the four-year-old was in. Wilson told police that the four-year-old was non-verbal and autistic. The room the child was in had the door handle removed, and inside the room, the child was naked, unable to enter or exit the room due to the removed door handle, and officers also found rotted food, feces, and bugs all over the floor.
More searching of the home found that there was no food in the fridge, pantries, or cabinets.
Police placed Wilson into custody, and EMS workers took the children to UPMC Children's Hospital for evaluation.
Wilson is now being housed in the Allegheny County Jail and is facing multiple charges of endangering the welfare of children and a charge of false imprisonment of a minor.
Bates is facing the same charges, as well as a charge of neglect of a care-dependent person, but she is still on the run.