A Mssouri couple has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child after their 3-year-old son fell from a eight-story apartment window in Independence and died.

The boy fell from the window at about 10 a.m. on Monday, KCTV reported. He was taken to Children’s Mercy Hospital with head trauma, broken bones, and other injuries and died that afternoon.

According to court records, Moses Lee Bass, 30, told investigators that he and his 28-year-old girlfriend, Destiny Leeann Randle, were well aware of the safety hazards of their apartment window and that they knew the children had been able to bypass their attempts to secure the window and open the it since December.

The adults used a blue metal pole to keep the window from sliding open, but Bass admitted in court that even the 3-year-old knew how to remove it. The children frequently threw toys from the window, he said.

Randle told detectives she had been in another room when the child fell and that the window had been closed and secured. She also said she last checked on the children at 11 p.m. the night before, according to WDAF.

Bass was outside walking the dog at the time of the incident and was alerted when he saw emergency responders tending to a child on the ground. He said he telephoned Randle and told her to check on the children.

Randle checked and found the window open and the toddler missing. Randle told detectives that she had tried several times to get apartment management to fix the window since they moved in about a year ago.

The Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office told KCTV that it was too soon to say if anyone else, such as the management company, would face charges.

A probable cause statement said the apartment was filled with trash, “specifically in the kitchen, which had huge piles of trash built up in a shopping cart.”

“All the beds in the children’s rooms were covered in old dirt and did not have any sheets on them,” the document said. “Old, used diapers were also found in the children’s room with no receptacle to hold them. The children’s room specifically smelled of urine.”

The couple’s other three children were placed in the custody of the Children’s Division. Bass and Randle are due back in court on August 7 and have a preliminary hearing set for August 26.

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[Featured image: Moses Lee Bass and Destiny Leeann Randle/Jackson County Sheriff’s Office]