Insets left to right: Ashley Cardona, Lori Cardona, and Michael Cardona (Newberry Police Department). Background: A rural road near where the Cardona family allegedly kept children in torture-like conditions for years in York County, Pa. (Google Maps).
Three adult members of the same Pennsylvania family are behind bars for torture-like conditions suffered by multiple children over the course of several years, Keystone State police say.
Ashley Cardona, 31, the mother, stands accused of five counts of aggravated assault crimes, eight counts related to false imprisonment and unlawful restraint, two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, and 10 counts of criminal conspiracy, according to the Newberry Township Police Department.
The grandmother, Lori Cardona, 53, faces multiple counts of aggravated assault, false imprisonment and unlawful restraint, endangering child welfare, and conspiracy. The uncle, Michael Cardona, 29, is charged with false imprisonment, unlawful restraint, endangering child welfare, and conspiracy.
The investigation in the case began on March 19, 2024, police said.
That day, law enforcement received a phone call from York Hospital about two children taken into the custody of child welfare workers for their protection, according to charging documents obtained by Harrisburg-based CBS, MyNetworkTV, and The CW affiliate WHP.
The person who made the call said the boy was malnourished and forced to live in a crate or cage for 24 hours a day while the girl was forced to sit in a car seat for around 20 hours per day, police said. At the time of the discovery, the girl was 5 and the boy was 6, police say.
On March 22, 2024, police executed a search warrant at a residence on Cassel Road in Newberry Township, a small municipality located roughly 110 miles west of Philadelphia.
Inside the house, detectives discovered a crib in the living room that had been modified into a "cage-like structure, incorporating external locking mechanisms," according to the charging documents.
The structure was measured by one of the detectives, who determined it was 51 inches long by 31 inches wide and 60 inches in height. Inside the cage was a piece of carpet that reeked of urine, and the rails of the crib were covered in feces, police said.
The structure was described as a "crib cage" by York County District Attorney Tim Barker in comments to Lancaster-based NBC affiliate WGAL. The prosecutor elaborated on the construction of the cage by describing it as "a homemade caged crib constructed with stacked cribs, ratchet straps, zip ties, locking mechanisms and also (the child) was restrained with a wrist device connected to a leash."
Michael Cardona, for his part, admitted to creating the structure by stacking one crib upside down on top of another crib, police said.
In the mother's bedroom, detectives found a playpen that could be closed from the outside using a zipper, according to law enforcement.
Child welfare agency employees told investigators that during repeat home visits starting in late February 2024, two of the children had been "confined in restraints for prolonged periods," police said. While the children were restrained, adults were often asleep or absent entirely, agency staffers alleged. Food was sometimes passed to the boy through the slats of the cage, according to law enforcement.
"Both children had reportedly not left the home in approximately two years and had not received routine medical or dental care since 2019," the charging document alleges.
Following up on the dental component of the allegations, investigators searched the bathroom for implements of dental hygiene and allegedly came up all but empty-handed; there was a lone bottle of mouthwash but no toothbrushes or toothpaste, police said.
The girl had severe dental decay and 14 cavities, police said. Additionally, though 6 years old at the time, she was not toilet trained.
"Medical providers expressed concern for medical neglect, developmental delay, and physical abuse and recommended emergency evaluation rather than outpatient care," the charging document continues.
Hospital staff said the girl had limited mobility and limited range of motion in her neck, attributing "musculoskeletal findings" to the time she spent restrained in the car seat, according to police.
Two children were removed from the home before law enforcement was called. In a press release issued on Wednesday, police referred to a third child victim, but the law enforcement narrative does not detail the abuse allegedly suffered by the third child.
The eldest child allegedly told police that Ashley Cardona "hates" the younger children and "doesn't care what happens," according to a criminal complaint obtained by York-based Fox affiliate WPMT.
"The investigation began in March 2024 and involved three child victims, ages 5, 6, and 10," the press release reads. "The victims in this case sustained substantial physical and mental harm. Furthermore, it was determined by a physician and member of the Child Protective Team at Penn State Health that the totality of the circumstances in this case meet the definition of child torture."
The charging document contains a physician's definition of the term:
Child torture was described as a longitudinal pattern of physical abuse combined with two or more forms of psychological maltreatment. Unlike isolated incidents of physical abuse, child torture is premeditated, pervasive, and impacts all aspects of a child's daily life, resulting in significant physical, emotional, and developmental harm.
As of July 2025, the children were placed together with a family in York, a medium-sized city roughly 13 miles south of Newberry.
The defendants were arrested earlier this week and are being detained in the York County Prison in lieu of $250,000 bail.
"Since the children were safe, we had the ability where we did not need to press forward prematurely without the full scope of information," Barker said, explaining the long delay in charging the defendants after the alleged abuse was uncovered. "It was a lot of information to obtain a lot of information to digest."