Couple Allegedly Forces 7-Year-Old to Sleep in Coffin

Police are searching for a Scranton couple accused by a 7-year-old boy of abuse, which included forcing him to sleep in a coffin.

The boy was found crying in the bug-infested basement of a condemned home on Raines Street on September 26, after neighbors called police, according to The Times-Tribune.

The victim tells authorities that 26-year-old Lori Gardner and 31-year-old Brian Sleboda made him sleep in a coffin in the basement with virtually no light and flies and ticks swarming, reports the paper. He says that the two tortured him by telling him ghosts lived down there and that they often made noises to scare him.

Authorities are searching for the couple, who were both home at the time of the visit, but have since disappeared.

The duos relation to the boy is unknown at this time.

"It's a very sad case," Chief Dan Duffy told the Times-Tribune. "That's pretty much all I can say."