Via Pam’s House Blend…

Lavonia, Ga., man imprisoned family for years, police say

Police say for the past three years, the wife and children of Raymond Daniel Thurmond lived in fear and squalor; held captive in a singlewide trailer where they were literally not allowed to see the light of day.

According to the news article, nobody in the neighborhood even knew there was a family in that trailer.  Trailers in that park sit within feet of one another…

Only one of the children, who are ages 14, 13, 12, and 9, had been to school.

“The 14-year old had been allowed to go school until second grade,” Chief Carlisle said.

… 

The only food found in the house was rotted, leftover fast food, said Roger Dutton, who has been responsible for cleaning out the structure, and investigators said all four children were undernourished and underweight. “Their weight is not consistent with their height and age. They were deprived of food and had also gone without medical attention for a long period of time. In fact, one of the children has a serious medical condition that has gone untreated,” Carlisle said.

Photos taken at the scene by investigators and shown to this reporter revealed the family was living in unimaginable filth.

The photos showed thousands of roaches and roach dirt covered every part of every room. They crawled in and out of drawers, cupboards, and furniture.

Old pizza boxes were stacked in one corner of the living room with dozens of empty plastic soda bottles strewn about on the floor.

In the kitchen, counters were covered in stacks of dirty dishes and old empty cans of food. Bags of garbage were strewn about the house, mixed in with dirty clothes and other trash.

Workers have hauled away two Dumpsters full of trash so far, and the work still is not done, Dutton said.

The prisoners family were discovered when Thurmond decided to take himself a mistress on the side and his wife bolted…

All are now in protective custody at an undisclosed location. The children are being evaluated and their medical needs treated.

Thurmond was arrested when he showed up at the Fieldale chicken processing plant where he worked.

But at least those kids weren’t growing up in a same sex household, so they still had a good roll model of what family life is supposed to be like.