Authorities describe Calif. family’s filthy desert hovel

JOSHUA TREE, Calif. (AP) — The mounds of trash, old toys and furniture caught the attention of a Southern California sheriff’s deputy passing through the desert earlier this week. As he approached, he spotted a hovel cobbled together with plywood and plastic sheeting.

And then came the shocking discovery that a couple and their three children — ages 11 to 14 — had been living there for several years without running water, bathrooms or electricity.

The children’s mother, Mona Kirk, 51, would sleep alongside them in the ramshackle dwelling, which is about 4 feet high and 10 feet wide, said Cindy Bachman, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

Their father, Daniel Panico, 73, slept either in a trailer on the property or in another vehicle, she said.

“They were scraps of plywood that were put together and then they had a tarp over it to keep out the rain,” Bachman said of the shelter near Joshua Tree, about 125 miles east of Los Angeles.

Inside, blankets were strewn everywhere and chairs were used to try to hold up the tarp ceiling. A makeshift kitchen was littered with empty bottles with cans of corn, peas and soup stacked on wooden shelves. Several holes on the property were filled with feces, officials said.

The children didn’t appear to have any obvious injuries and showed no outward signs of malnutrition but were undergoing medical evaluations, Bachman said.

“It was apparent they had not bathed in days,” she said.