An Ohio couple has been indicted on charges they tortured and abused their five adopted children.
The children were all biological siblings brought the home as foster children before Matthew Edmonson and Charles Edmonson adopted them, WLWT reported.
Prosecutors said the children had been in and out of the hospital with bruising, bleach burns, internal bleeding and failure to thrive, with the parents providing excuses for the injuries.
Charles Edmonson is already in prison, serving three years for engaging in sexual relations with a different adopted son, an adult at the time.
Prosecutors said the Clermont County Sheriff’s Office uncovered multiple videos during that investigation that showed both defendants treating the children “worse than prisoners of war in their own home.”
“The videos of these undernourished and naked children huddled up in a locked room in the basement, on the stone-cold basement floor like a pile of puppies trying to stay together to keep warm, are nothing short of gut-wrenching,” Prosecuting Attorney Mark J. Tekulve said. “These two are unfit to be parents, and I am grateful to those who have worked tirelessly to make sure they will not be. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time and will not be the last time that my office has had to seek indictment for people like this who pretend to be ‘parents.'”
The Edmonsons are charged with five counts of child endangerment. They each face up to 18 years in prison if convicted.
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[Featured image: Matthew Edmonson and Charles Edmonsons/Clermont County Sheriff’s Office]