US couple charged for starving sons

A couple starved their four adopted sons for years while allowing their daughters to feast on takeaways, police and neighbours said today.

The boys were discovered at a house in New Jersey at the weekend after they were spotted rummaging through neighbours’ bins for food.

One of the boys, aged 19, weighed just over three stones and was only 4ft tall, allegedly as a result of years of undernourishment.

Raymond Jackson, 50, and his 48-year-old wife, Vanessa, have been charged with starving and endangering the boys aged nine, 10, 14 and 19.

It is alleged the youngsters, who were adopted between 1995 and 1997, were given only pancake batter, peanut butter, jelly and cereal to eat.

They reportedly told police and welfare workers they also ate parts of the house insulation.

At the same time the couple’s three girls were well fed, even being allowed to eat Chinese takeaway in front of the starving boys, authorities said.

The girls, adopted five and 10-year-olds and a 12-year-old foster child who was being adopted by the couple, were often seen playing in the family swimming pool.

“The girls were heavy and well-fed,” neighbour Dee Evans told the New York Post.

At the same time the boys were frequently seen cutting the lawn with shears or washing their clothes in a bucket at the side of the house.

The alleged horror was uncovered in the middle-class Philadelphia suburb of Collingswood. The Jacksons’ biological son and daughter, both in their 20s, also lived in the home, authorities said.

Another neighbour said the family went to church every week, in the pretence that home life was normal.

The Jacksons said their boys suffered eating disorders.

The pair were detained by police on Friday, charged with four counts of aggravated assault and 14 counts of endangering the welfare of children.

A social worker, who visited the house 38 times in two years, has resigned, according to the New Jersey’s Office of the Child Advocate.