VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Two autistic boys who police say were kept in a caged room will stay in foster care for at least a month as a commissioner decides their permanent living situation.
The Columbian reports the boys, ages 6 and 7, have been in foster care since police accused a Washington state couple of keeping them locked in a dark, mostly empty room.
Two maintenance workers found the children in diapers. Neither could speak, and neither had been enrolled in school.
The boys’ father, John Eckhart, and his girlfriend, Alayna Higdon, have pleaded not guilty to charges of criminal mistreatment and unlawful imprisonment.
