Mom abandoned 5 kids in filthy home for ‘better life’ with boyfriend, PA cops say
.png "Five kids were left alone for days without food and water in deplorable conditions, police say.")
Two Pennsylvania women are facing charges after police say five kids were left alone in a deplorable home.
The mother and maternal grandmother of five kids, ages 9, 10, 14, 15 and 16, are charged with child endangerment, according to Trib Live.
McClatchy News is not naming the women to protect the identities of the children.
Police responded to a home in Vandergrift on July 28 after one of the kids said they hadn’t seen their mom in days, Trib Live reported.
At the home, police found urine and feces on the floor, rotten food, bunk beds made from plywood, and holes in the walls and ceiling, court records said, according to the news outlet.
“It was very obvious that water had not been on in a long time,” an officer wrote in an affidavit, according to WTAE.
The kids told police they had no food and would only eat the free lunches at school, the outlet reported.
The children told police that their mother was living with her boyfriend in Pittsburgh and would travel back and forth, WTAE reported. Vandergrift is about a 35-mile drive northeast from Pittsburgh.
The boyfriend told the mom to abandon her children and live with him so “he can give her a new and better life without them,” the affidavit said, according to the outlet.
In a conversation with police, the mother said she was in West Virginia and only lived at the Vandergrift home, Trib Live reported.
The kids’ 69-year-old maternal grandmother lived about a mile away and the kids would go there and fill old cat litter containers with water, KDKA reported, citing police.
Police said the grandmother told them she knew how the kids were living but hadn’t gone in the house because it was “too gross,” according to Trib Live.
“The children were supposed to at least clean up after themselves, and they didn’t even do that,” the grandmother told KDKA.
The kids’ paternal grandmother told KDKA she wishes their mom would have reached out for help.
“I believe that she deserves everything she gets,” she told the news outlet. “I will do everything in my power to continue doing what I’m doing and keeping my grandkids safe.”
This story was originally published August 6, 2025 at 4:27 PM with the headline "Mom abandoned 5 kids in filthy home for ‘better life’ with boyfriend, PA cops say."
