THREE children locked in a “house of horrors”;; by their parents for four horrific years are facing another heartbreaking struggle.
Christian Steffen, 53,and his wife Melissa Ann Steffen, 48, were arrested for alleged child abuse after theraided the house in.
The police found three young boys at the Oviedo home – dubbed the “house of horrors”;; – who are thought to have lived there for four years since thebegan.
The eight-year-old twins and ten-year-old boy were discovered in horrific conditions – each wearing threeand forced to wear nappies andin caged beds.
And now, the tragic victims are reportedly set to be put into a children’s home.
The police said the house was full of rubbish and old medicines as well as filthy pet excrement and a cat with a massive tumour.
The children were reportedly kept out of school and were forbidden to leave the house.
A source close to the ongoingsaid: “They had a timetable and a maximum number of times a day they could use the toilet because the rest of the time they had to wear nappies.”;;
The young boys were reportedly suffering from “severe constipation”;; when they were discovered because they weren’t allowed to go to the toilet when they wanted.
The parents also used black market medicines containingderivative THC to treat the kids for alleged deficit attention disorders which investigators say they are not even sure the youngsters were suffering.
The mum-of-three told cops they had asked officials in– where they lived before moving to northern Spain – for permission to educate their kids at home after the initial Covid crisis.
The family emigrated after being warned that social services would be alerted if they took them out of school.
A guest room in the horror house had been turned into a makeshift classroom where the boys had reportedly learned to read, write and draw.
The police said the house was full of rubbish and old medicines as well as filthy pet excrement and used tampons.
But strangely the couple were reportedly using half a dozen air purifier machines they kept in their bedroom.
The children were reportedly told to lower the blinds on their bedroom windows at 5.10pm each day after being allowed to raise them exactly halfway up the windows during daylight hours.
They had noto watch or electronic games to play with and wore pyjamas all day and all night – and manyneighbourshave admitted they had no idea anyone was even living in the house.
Cops were only called when a resident in the area raised the alarm.
The woman reportedly heard voices that sounded like children coming from the house despite never having seen anyone leave the house to play or go to school.
After several days of surveillance cops were clear that more than just the man they saw coming in and out had to live there.
The size of the boxes of food of the orders that the man brought into the home were the biggest giveaway.
But nothing could prepare the agents for what they would find when they entered theJosef Fritzl-esque house.
When they wanted to take them out of the building they did not even have shoes of their size as they had not bought shoes for years.
The police added that when the children were freed, one of them knelt on the grass and touched it with amazement.
An officer said: “They touched the grass and breathed fresh air as if they had never done so before in their lives.
“They saw a snail and they were completely taken aback.”;;
The chief commissioner of the Local Police of Oviedo, Francisco Javier Lozano explained the details of the operation leading to the arrest of the couple at 2.45pm on Monday.
The initial searchof the house was reportedly made more difficult becausehad been plunged into darkness by the electricity outrage.
When the cops knocked on the front door, the father answered but asked the officers to wait for a few minutes so the children could put their masks on.
One police officer told the Spanish press: “They were very scared and around the mother, who told us all the time that the little ones had serious pathologies and that we should not approach them.
“They had three masks each on top of each other. They were oblivious to any contact with reality.”;;
Lozano added: “We have dismantled the house of horrors”;;.
Having been checked out at the Central University Hospital of Asturias the children have now been placed under the guardianship of the Government of the Principality.
And the boys’ parents have been warned they face possiblesentences of between five and seven years.
They are being investigated on suspicion of domestic violence, psychological mistreatment and child abandonment.
It is not yet clear who is defending them, but lawyers hired by the couple are expected to consider an expert analysis of their clients’ mentalamid speculation it had suffered as a result of the Covid crisis.
Christian reportedly worked as a freelance senior tech recruiter and HR manager, having obtained a doctorate in philosophy from Hamburg University.
He previously worked as a marketing consultant and head of a call centre at a telecommunications company.
