Indiana: Three children and pets found living in trailer with feces-covered floor, cockroach infestation. Ralph McKinney Jr and Amy McKinney taken to jail

INDIANA -- "It was absolutely horrible inside that house.  The parents have chosen to live that way, but these children did not have that choice," said Sheriff Hendrickson in talking about the Farmland-area home of Ralph and Amy McKinney.

Randolph County Sheriff's Deputies served a search warrant Thursday in the 7500 block of West 300 South in Farmland to investigate living conditions.

Police say the home was covered in animal feces and infested with cockroaches.

 

"Inside the trailer is absolutely deplorable," said Randolph County Sheriff Ken Hendrickson.

Sheriff Hendrickson said it was one of the worst living conditions he had observed in his 29 years of law enforcement.  

 

Pug and pig on front stoop of trailer

A sign on the door from the county health department declares the home "unfit for human habitation."

Hendrickson says the county got a warrant to search the mobile home after deputies were at the rural property on an unrelated call and saw the conditions for themselves.

 

Chihuahua in the middle of all this trash

The sheriff says police and health inspectors found "feces, urine. There was a potbelly pig running around in and out of the residence, feeding from there. It was absolutely horrible inside the house."

The sheriff's department supplied photos of the refrigerator.

"The food...there is no food there. It was stocked fully, but it was rotten," Hendrickson said. "And in the freezer itself, we actually found a dead rat inside the freezer."

 

Dead rat in the freezer with their food

On top of the food containers, the former family pet was being saved for the taxidermist according to the McKinneys.

Child Protective Services removed three young people from the house. A 16-year-old was there when police and health department arrived. She was home sick from school. Two boys, ages 11 and 17, were picked up after school.

 

Both parents, 44-year-old Ralph McKinney Jr. and his wife, Amy McKinney, 32, were arrested. They're each facing three counts of child neglect.

 

Animal Control carted away several chinchillas and dogs (including a Pug and a Chihuahua). Other livestock, like a pig and some goats, stayed on the property. They belong to the suspect's parents, who live in the next mobile home there on the same property. 

Police couldn't talk about the other investigation that brought them to the mobile home, but say they hope to wrap that case up soon.

 

(WTHR - Aug 18, 2016)