DE - 12 Year Old Escapes Locked Room Of Three Months

The parents of a 12-year-old boy allegedly kept prisoner in an empty bedroom for three months have been indicted on child abuse charges.

Robert Hohn III, 41, and his wife, Shannon Watterson, 39, who have three other children, are accused of imprisoning the teen at their Delaware home....

Chillingly police claimed the three other children - Watterson's birth children - a 14-year-old girl and two boys aged 9 and 19 led a normal life at the house.

They have been jailed since their arrest on November 28 when the neighbor called New Castle County Police.

The children have been placed in other homes.

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Melissa Ferraro-Walsh told the station that she found the child on her doorstep Tuesday night, after he managed to escape from the room and run, barefoot, to her house for help...

The woman lives a mile away from the home where the boy was being kept.

"He was so tiny you wouldn't even be able to tell his age," she said. Investigators say Hohn and Watterson restricted their son's food intake, and that he was 20 pounds underweight...

The boy is in the care of a hospital, where doctors are attempting to get his weight up to healthy levels and treating foot injuries he sustained in the journey to Ferraro-Walsh's house.
The woman told WPVI that the boy kept saying he didn't want his parents to get in trouble.

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