<t>Two young Stoney Creek children have been rescued from a feces-smeared windowless basement room where they were kept locked up by their own parents and grandmother, Hamilton police say. <br/>
Two boys, 5 and 2, were found by patrol officers on April 2 when they went to the Stoney Creek Mountain home to check an unknown 911 call.<br/>
Investigators now think one of the little children made the call.<br/>
Police, who are required to check all unknown 911 calls, entered the home but at first found nothing out of the ordinary, said Detective Sergeant Chris Kiriakopoulos, of the Hamilton police victims of crime unit. <br/>
“When an officer came near the basement stairs, he heard a cry from downstairs,” he said.<br/>
Officers found a five-year-old boy near the bottom of the stairs “in a state of anxiety and fear,” then discovered a small room with a two-year-old boy inside.<br/>
“The room was filthy beyond words, and the officer who entered it said he almost couldn’t breathe from the stench.”<br/>
The windowless, pitch-black room had bunk beds and bedding that were soaked with urine, while feces was smeared on the walls.<br/>
“The room was very filthy and officers found dead rats outside the room.”<br/>
Kiriakopoulos said the room had a latch on the door frame that had been used to lock the children inside. “They had been confined inside the room for a periods of time.”<br/>
Child-abuse investigators executed a search warrant on the home the next day.<br/>
Six children from 2 to 13 lived in the home with parents and grandparents. <br/>
“It is a blended family,” Kiriakopoulos said. <br/>
All six children are now in foster care.<br/>
Children’s aid workers had routinely been checking on two children living with their grandparents on the main floor of the home, says Dominic Verticchio, executive director of the Children’s Aid Society of Hamilton. <br/>
“But nobody knew the other children were living there,” he says.<br/>
The CAS had been involved with the children on the main floor for “a couple of months.”<br/>
Verticchio says four children in total were living in the basement, along with two adults.<br/>
The parents, a 35-year-old man and woman, 27, and a 60-year-old grandmother have been charged with forcible confinement.<br/>
The grandmother has also been charged with assault. All three have been released on a promise to appear in court on May 6.</t>
Two boys, 5 and 2, were found by patrol officers on April 2 when they went to the Stoney Creek Mountain home to check an unknown 911 call.<br/>
Investigators now think one of the little children made the call.<br/>
Police, who are required to check all unknown 911 calls, entered the home but at first found nothing out of the ordinary, said Detective Sergeant Chris Kiriakopoulos, of the Hamilton police victims of crime unit. <br/>
“When an officer came near the basement stairs, he heard a cry from downstairs,” he said.<br/>
Officers found a five-year-old boy near the bottom of the stairs “in a state of anxiety and fear,” then discovered a small room with a two-year-old boy inside.<br/>
“The room was filthy beyond words, and the officer who entered it said he almost couldn’t breathe from the stench.”<br/>
The windowless, pitch-black room had bunk beds and bedding that were soaked with urine, while feces was smeared on the walls.<br/>
“The room was very filthy and officers found dead rats outside the room.”<br/>
Kiriakopoulos said the room had a latch on the door frame that had been used to lock the children inside. “They had been confined inside the room for a periods of time.”<br/>
Child-abuse investigators executed a search warrant on the home the next day.<br/>
Six children from 2 to 13 lived in the home with parents and grandparents. <br/>
“It is a blended family,” Kiriakopoulos said. <br/>
All six children are now in foster care.<br/>
Children’s aid workers had routinely been checking on two children living with their grandparents on the main floor of the home, says Dominic Verticchio, executive director of the Children’s Aid Society of Hamilton. <br/>
“But nobody knew the other children were living there,” he says.<br/>
The CAS had been involved with the children on the main floor for “a couple of months.”<br/>
Verticchio says four children in total were living in the basement, along with two adults.<br/>
The parents, a 35-year-old man and woman, 27, and a 60-year-old grandmother have been charged with forcible confinement.<br/>
The grandmother has also been charged with assault. All three have been released on a promise to appear in court on May 6.</t>
