Prosecutors claim that the two parents who abused and traumatized their five adopted children treated them “worse than prisoners of war in their own home,” which is why they are now behind bars.
The children’s mother, Matthew Edmonson, 49, and father, Charles Edmonson, 63, were indicted last week on five charges of endangering the welfare of the kid by an Ohio grand jury. If found guilty, the parents may spend up to 18 years behind bars.
The other two children are twelve and fourteen, and the three triplets will turn nine next Monday. Mark J. Tekulve, the prosecuting attorney for Clermont County, claims that the Edmonsons first adopted the five siblings with special needs after taking them in as foster children.
However, the prosecutors claim that dreams of establishing a secure, loving family were never realized. According to reports, the children were admitted and discharged from the hospital for wounds like burns on the beach, bruises, and even internal bleeding.
Physicians were allegedly told by their mother to write off the injuries as normal for children with special needs. The case took a turn for the worst when authorities detained Charles Edmonson for molesting another adopted son who was an adult at the time.
Tekulve stated that the defendants were “treating these beloved special needs children worse than prisoners of war in their own home” based on many recordings that the detectives found that were “too graphic to describe.”
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“The videos of these undernourished and naked children huddled up in a locked room in the basement, on the stone-cold basement floor like a pile of puppies trying to stay together to keep warm, are nothing short of gut-wrenching,” Tekulve stated. “These two are unfit to be parents and I am grateful to those who have worked tirelessly to make sure they will not be. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time and will not be the last time that my office has had to seek indictment for people like this who pretend to be ‘parents.”’
“These three little fellows, the triplets, they were just wrapped up with one another naked,” he stated to Levy. “And you can imagine why they’re doing this. It is for warmth, and probably for comfort as well. But we intend to prosecute this case and seek the maximum possible penalty.”
Tekulve stated that a few months ago, the children were taken from the Edmonson residence by Child Protective Services.
