The malnourished children found inside of a shop on a property in Wise County this week were locked in a dog cage, wearing dirty clothes and sleeping in dirty bedding and covered in their own feces, according to an arrest warrant affidavit for their parents that was released by authorities Thursday.
Paige Harkings and Andrew Fabila each face four charges of child endangerment by criminal negligence. Harkings also faces a charge of aggravated assault causing bodily injury after Fabila was found with several cuts to his face.
Deputies were dispatched to their home off County Road 4930 on Tuesday morning on a report about a possible physical disturbance. When the deputies arrived, they found Harkings and Fabila outside of a metal shop, smoking, according to the affidavit.
Fabila told the deputies that his four children were in the shop, and two of the deputies went to check on them.
When they got inside, they saw the children: One was wrapped in a blanket, lying on a heating pad, which sat on stop of a plastic wrapping over a mattress; two children were locked in a dog kennel, "covered in their own feces," the affidavit said; and a fourth child was lying on a "Pack-N-Play" bed and wrapped up in blankets.
The shop had electricity but no indoor plumbing. The children were using an unconnected toilet with trash bags around the bowl, the affidavit said.
The deputies found a space heater next to the dog cage, where two of the children were locked inside. The children's clothes and bedding were dirty, and some of the children were in diapers, which were dirty and "appeared to not have been changed in a lengthy amount of time," the affidavit said.
The deputies found food inside of a residence on the property, but the refrigerator and pantry were secured and the children couldn't access the food.
Deputies fed the children, then an ambulance took the children to Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth. They were released into foster care Wednesday night.
“It’s as bad as I’ve seen,” Sheriff Lane Akin said of the case. “I find it to be unimaginable that our deputies would walk into a house where children are caged like an angry animal.”
Harkings and Fabila were arrested and booked into the Wise County Jail. Their bonds were set at $15,000 for each of the four endangerment charges. The bond for Harkings' assault charge was also set at $15,000.