By MARISSA DECHANT
Staff writer
Two Oil City residents are facing charges after police were called to their Beech Street apartment by a social services employee.
Criminal complaints filed in district judge Patrick Lowrey’s office indicate that police arrived Tuesday morning at the residence of Amanda Myers, 25, and Joshua Stone, 33, and were advised that children could be heard yelling inside the residence.
Police made contact with Myers and Lisa Sanford, an employee with the Venango County Protective, Intake and Crisis Unit and Children and Youth Services, the complaint said.
Sanford was following up on an allegation of children being locked inside a bedroom inside the residence, the complaint said.
She tried to make contact and could hear children yelling inside the residence to “let them out,” according to the complaint. Sanford said a 6-year-old girl and other children were locked inside the bedroom, the complaint said.
Police conducted an investigation and found a gray electronics cord being used to secure the door, the complaint said.
Myers and Stone both said they use the cord to secure the bathroom door of the residence by tying the cord to the door knob of the bathroom to the children’s bedroom door, according to the complaint.
Both Myers and Stone said they never lock the children inside the room, although Sanford said she could hear the children yelling to let them out of the room, the complaint said.
Police observed the children’s bedroom and said they found the room in disarray with dirty clothes and garbage items on the floor, including a dirty diaper that had been torn up. There was also another cord lying on the floor that the children, ranging in age from 1 to 5, could become tangled in, the complaint said.
Police also observed that there was no lighting in the bedroom and only one twin-sized mattress for the four children, the complaint said.
Myers and Stone were taken into custody because of that incident and other similar incidents that were reported and investigated on Jan. 24, the complaint said.
They were arraigned before Lowrey on a felony charge of endangering the welfare of children and released on $5,000 unsecured bail.
