Background: The Upshur County Sheriff's Office in Buckhannon, W.Va. (Google Maps). Inset (left to right): Joshua Vincent Moore and Kayla Spruill (Tygart Valley Regional Jail).
The teenage daughter of a West Virginia couple called 911 to report a domestic violence incident and police said when they arrived, they found a 4-year-old child with autism locked in a room.
According to local CBS affiliate WDTV, 40-year-old Joshua Vincent Moore and 36-year-old Kayla Spruill were arrested on March 5 and charged with child neglect-creating a risk of injury. The Upshur County Sheriff's Office said in a criminal complaint obtained by WDTV that deputies responded to a call from the couple's home after their 18-year-old daughter called 911, reporting a domestic violence incident between her parents.
When deputies searched the home, they found a 4-year-old child alone in a bedroom.
Local news outlet The Inter-Mountain reported that deputies questioned Moore and Spruill about the alleged domestic incident when they arrived at the home. Spruill told the deputies that Moore hit her in the face with a phone by accident, causing a "small laceration" to her bottom lip.
When police spoke to the daughter, she told them that altercations between Moore and Spruill were common, though Moore was more often "mentally and emotionally" abusive toward Spruill.
One of the deputies asked about other children in the house, and the daughter led them to a bedroom secured by two locked gates instead of a door. Inside was a 4-year-old child described by the daughter as having nonverbal autism. She told police that her parents had locked the child in the room "for [their] own safety."
According to the complaint, the child was naked with blue stains on their feet and mouth. When the police made the discovery, the child was allegedly trying to finger paint with their own feces.
The daughter told police that her parents asked her to skip school to watch the 4-year-old. She said Moore had to work and Spruill was not home. Police said the teenager told them that Moore often locked the 4-year-old in their room while he "smokes weed and plays video games."
Deputies then spoke to Spruill, who allegedly admitted that she and Moore would lock the 4-year-old in their bedroom for safety reasons because the child would "elope." After the deputies allegedly smelled alcohol on Spruill's breath, they administered a breath test and determined that she had a BAC of 0.1. Police said Spruill claimed she went to her friend's house after work the previous day and spent the night. While she was there, she claimed that she and her friend split a bottle of wine and watched a movie.
Police said Spruill stated that she returned home at 11:30 a.m. on March 5. The breath test was conducted at 2 p.m.
When police spoke to Moore, he said he smoked marijuana when he woke up at 3:30 a.m. that day, then went to work, returning home at 1:30 p.m. He told deputies that Spruill also smoked marijuana that day before leaving for work and leaving her teenage daughter to watch the younger child.
Moore and Spruill were taken into custody and remain at the Tygart Valley Regional Jail, where they each are being held on $25,000 cash bonds. Both are scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing on March 13.