Children caged as their father used drugs, say police

TWO brothers were locked up in a dog cage when their father used drugs and when they were being punished, and one had to wear a shock collar, authorities said.

The two-foot high cages were barely big enough for them enough to fit inside.

The parents appeared briefly in court yesterday on charges of child endangerment and making or selling drugs in front of the children, ages 10 and five.

Jessica Botzko, 28, and John Westover, 37, were arrested a day earlier, after the boys ran away from home and were found on a neighbour’s porch.

The boys told officers that they had been abused and locked in a dog cage at their home, said police Captain Ray Carroll.

They also said their father put them in the cage when he was using drugs, according to Carroll.

Court documents say the 10-year-old boy was repeatedly shocked at the family’s home through a remote-controlled collar.

Police searched the family’s mobile home and found it filled with garbage, Carroll said. The couple’s hearings were continued because neither had a lawyer and the parents remained in jail.

One neighbour said one of the boys “would sit in the window crying and he would throw toys to my son but he would never be allowed outside to play.”

Another Ohio couple, Michael and Sharen Gravelle of Norwalk, were convicted in February of child abuse and endangerment for keeping some of their 11 special-needs adopted children in wire and wood enclosures.