Two children rescued from squalid home filled with maggots after years of isolation
Warning: This article contains discussion of child abuse which some readers may find distressing.
Two men have been arrested after young children were rescued from a home that ‘smelled like death’ and was filled with maggots in Texas.
Michael Robbins, 34, and John Robbins, 68, have been arrested on charges of abandoning or endangering a child with intent after two children, aged eight and 10, were found in a bathtub of dirty water in Temple, living in horrific conditions in a maggot-infested home.
Officers from Temple Police Department attended the residence just before 8am on Wednesday 20 May, after neighbours reported smelling a foul odour coming from the property.
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An arrest affidavit obtained by PEOPLE Magazine recalled that when officers approached, they ‘could immediately smell an odour coming from the home’ that ‘smelled like death’ and noticed flies around the windows.
Police knocked on the doors, and when nobody answered, they entered, believing someone could be dead inside.
However, they were instead met with the two men, who were residing in the home, which was ‘completely filled with rotting garbage on the floor and surfaces’, rat and mouse faeces, rotting food in the kitchen covered with flies and other bugs, as well as maggots in the kitchen sink.
The affidavit also stated that one of the young children had matted hair that ‘appeared to be infested with bugs', and both ‘smelled of urine, faeces, body odour and stagnant water’.
Heartbreakingly, when the children were asked to get dressed, they returned in clothes covered in food stains, before they told the officers that they didn’t know how to read or write and they had never attended school.
Meanwhile, neighbours told TPD officers that they hadn’t seen the children outside in years, and the document disclosed that ‘it was learned that Michael Robbins and John Robbins did not provide food regularly for either child’.
They found that instead, the children were caring for each other. Heartbreakingly, officers found that one of the children’s adult teeth were growing rotted in their mouth.
Both the eight-year-old and 10-year-old were immediately removed from the home and transported to the hospital.
As reported by KWTX, the two men were transported to the Bell County Jail on charges of abandoning or endangering a child with intent. They are being held at the Bell County Jail on $60,000 bonds each. It's unclear if they have entered pleas.
An investigation is ongoing, and anyone with information should contact the Temple Police Department on (254) 289-5500 or the Bell County Crime Stoppers at (254) 526-8477.
Tips can also be submitted at bellcountycrimestoppers.com.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, contact the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000, 10am-8pm Monday to Friday. If you are a child seeking advice and support, call Childline for free on 0800 1111, 24/7.
Madison Burgess