Daily News | 7 children found living in deplorable conditions in shocking Bucks County discovery
The 12-year-old Bucks County girl, barefoot and wearing a hoodie pulled around her head, looked up at the officers responding to reports she’d been stealing from a nearby abandoned trailer. The girl had only taken the blanket she held in her hands, she told police, to keep her family’s rats warm.
The strange encounter in rural West Rockhill Township led investigators to a shocking discovery, one that ended with felony charges filed against a couple accused of hiding their seven young children amid deplorable conditions inside a crumbling home — unwashed, uneducated, and severely malnourished. The pair, 47-year-old Shane Robertson and 37-year-old Crystal Robertson, were charged with seven counts of endangering the welfare of children, according to court documents.An investigation, which began in late April after police encountered the girl, would confirm that the Robertson family indeed kept two dozen caged rats in a room in their Roseann Lane home.Police found seven children age 16 or younger living inside, four of them hidden in a back room. Almost all of them were critically malnourished — evidenced by the lock that the Robertsons kept on the family fridge. Inside, officers found very little food. Meanwhile, the children — the youngest of them 4 years old — were riddled with health issues ranging from COVID-19, low kidney function, and dental abscesses to maggots, sunburned scalp, and ringworm. Police said they had no formal education and lacked basic knowledge, struggling with reading, writing, and spelling. Some of the children did not know their own birthdays. Others suffered speech impediments and discovered, only once in the care of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, that they needed glasses. Meanwhile, police recounted in detail the conditions festering under the Robertsons’ roof as more fit for a zoo than for children. Garbage strewn on the floor, feces on walls and sheets, corroded pipes and caked dust. Floorboards so warped officers could see the dirt beneath the home — Crystal Robertson fell through several months before, she told them. Walls were crumbling around the family, officers described, while holes and animal cages dotted the Robertsons’ bedroom. Police discovered dogs, turtles, rabbits, toads, and snakes kept throughout the house. A 4-foot reptile which police called a “Tegu” might have been reference to the oversize tegus lizard primarily found in South America.Both Robertsons were held in the Bucks County Jail and released on bail. Their preliminary hearings are forthcoming.
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