GUILTY IL - Matthew Degner, 14, dies amid disease-ridden menagerie, Berwyn, 8 Sept 2011

The mother of a 14-year-old boy who died on Thursday is under investigation after police found more than 200 animals ‘riddled with disease’ inside their squalid suburban Chicago home.

Matthew Degner's lifeless body was reportedly dragged outside by family members, before police arrived, presumably in the hope that they would not look inside the home.

Authorities did, however, and were horrified by the disgusting environment they found in the more roughly 1,100 square-foot bungalow.
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Officials told NBC that all of the children were suffering from flu-like symptoms recently.

Is it believed the children were kept in isolation, a DCFS spokesman said, adding: 'Social isolation is one of the most powerful risk factors for serious harm to children.'
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On Sept. 8, 2011, according to authorities, Price called 911 after her son Matthew stopped breathing. The boy was pronounced dead of pneumonia soon after.

Authorities said Matthew and his four siblings, then ages 18 to 12, the youngest of whom has autism, had lived in a house infested with insects and rats. Many of the more than 200 dogs, cats, birds and other animals found in the house were malnourished or dead. Price’s elderly mother also lived in the house. The children had been home-schooled.

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A Berwyn woman whose teenage son was found dying outside a house crowded with hundreds of cats, dogs and birds was sentenced Monday to probation and barred from owning any animals...

Lydia Price, 52, was found guilty in May of three counts of animal cruelty and criminal neglect of a disabled person related to the death of her son, 14-year-old Matthew Degner.

Price testified that she was obligated by her religious faith to care for the animals that showed up on her doorstep, and that she and her family lived with them “just like Noah”... Judge Noreen Love ordered Price to undergo a mental health evaluation...

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