TONTITOWN, Ark. — According to the Tontitown Police Department (TPD), bodycam footage captured the moment when a 5-year-old was pulled from a section of closet that was nailed shut. The man who owned the home, John Thompson, has been arrested.
Police say officers arrived at Thompson's Tontitown home to assist the Arkansas Department of Human Services (ADHS) in taking custody of the 5-year-old on Nov. 2, but upon arriving, Thompson refused to open the door, saying that the child was not there.
During this conversation, which police estimate to have lasted at least thirty minutes, police say they heard banging from the outside of the wall.
TPD says that eventually, Thompson agreed to let them in to take custody of the child.
Upon entering the house, "[Thompson] got down on his knees in a closet ... moved some boxes, and then had to pull a board that was nailed to the wall to get access to a small space ... to allow the child to come out," TPD reports.
Police say "the space the child was in might have been a triangle-shaped void ... possibly six to eight feet wide, going down to two to four feet wide."
5NEWS will update this article as more information becomes available. We are working to confirm the charges that Thompson faces.
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