A West Virginia couple has been charged with child neglect after investigators found two teenagers locked inside a shed in the backyard of their property and a third, younger child locked inside the main home in a loft 15 feet off the ground.

Donald Ray Lantz, 63, and Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 61, were not present when a Kanawha County sheriff’s deputy responded to a call about the children’s welfare shortly before 6 Monday afternoon, the sheriff’s office said. They arrived while deputies were on scene and were arrested on felony charges of gross child neglect creating a substantial risk of injury.

According to WSAZ, Whitefeather admitted locking the children in the shed but told deputies, “They like it.”

According to the criminal complaint, deputies had to force their way into the shed to reach the 16-year-old girl and 14-year-old boy inside. The girl told them they were locked in at about 6 a.m. and were given food at that time. She said she and her brother were not allowed in the main house and were frequently locked in the shed for long periods of time.

Deputies described the room where they children were found as 20×14 with no windows, no beds, and no running water. There was a single table and chair inside, along with a portable RV toilet on a tarp. The floors were concrete, and the walls were plywood, and deputies saw a camera in an upper corner of the room.

The children were wearing dirty clothes, the deputies said, and the boy was barefoot with apparent sores on his feet.

“If there was a medical emergency or fire, the children would be unable to exit the locked room to safety,” the criminal complaint says.

The complaint also says that when deputies looked through a window of the house, they spotted the other child, who appeared to be 5 or 6 years old, on the floor of the loft.

“I observed the child crying and close to the railing of an approximately 15 foot drop from the loft, the complaint says. “Due to the distressed condition of the child and risk of the child falling, forced entry was made to secure the child.”

Lantz and Whitefeather arrived at the scene about three hours after deputies first arrived.

Child Protective Services joined the sheriff’s office for the investigation. Lantz and Whitefeather are being held on bonds of $200,000 each.

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[Featured image: Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and Donald Ray Lantz/Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office]