An Oklahoma couple has been arrested after their children were discovered locked in a bedroom and covered in feces in their apartment.
Dakota Rain Dodd, 24, and Aubrianna Jewelyn Willow Freeman, 22, are charged with several counts of child neglect, according to Oklahoma County Detention Center records. A neighbor contacted 911 after apparently witnessing two youngsters, ages three and four, naked and potentially in distress in an upstairs window.
When officers arrived at the property on Greenvale Road in Oklahoma City’s western neighborhood, near Lytle Park, they reported an overwhelming smell of urine and feces. When cops came, Dodd answered the door and claimed to be the only person inside, before confessing that his two boys were upstairs.
An officer stated in a police report acquired by Law&Crime that Dodd offered to go retrieve the boys upstairs, but the cop wanted to accompany him. The officer described the apartment’s conditions, writing, “I was standing just inside the door of the dwelling, and I could tell the house was exceedingly disheveled.
“There was dirt everywhere, including food on the table, walls, and floors. The stink inside the house was pungent; it smelt of rubbish and sewage.” And, as the father was about to go upstairs with the officer, Dodd allegedly contacted Freeman to inform her that police were at their house.
According to the officer’s report, the boys’ mother remarked over the phone, “The ******* cops are at my door; we need to go.” The police officer reported that Dodd went upstairs at a rapid speed and that the father “opened the door after shaking/moving the doorknob as if it was locked.”
When the door opened, the officer was “struck with a smell that made my stomach turn and my eyes water.” According to the report, the boys were “extremely dirty” with excrement on their faces, hands, bodies, legs, and feet, and “I observed two young boys who were completely naked immediately come out of the room as if they had been standing at the door waiting or trying to get out.” “The boys were both extremely dirty, with feces on their faces, hands, bodies, legs, and feet.”
Oklahoma City Police MSgt. Gary Knight told Oklahoma City-based ABC affiliate KOCO that there was feces on the walls and the children. It was an awful scene. When they got inside, the police said they were almost overtaken by the smell of feces and urine. According to court documents, the flat was so filthy that officers wore hazmat suits.
According to the TV station, Dodd informed law enforcement that the boys were locked up in the filthy bedroom for 12 hours a day. According to sources, there was another youngster in the home. Police said all three children were taken to the hospital for examination and are now in the custody of state child welfare officials.
The two parents were detained on September 12, but their cases have not yet been brought to prosecutors for official charges, according to an Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office representative. According to the publication, the couple’s bonds are currently valued at $250,000.