Four malnourished mentally disabled adults were found chained to a boiler in a locked Tacony basement room that was too small for an adult to stand up straight and also reeked of waste from the buckets they used to relieve themselves, police said Sunday.
Three people were arrested Linda Ann Weston, 51, and Thomas Gregory, 47, both of the 2500 block of N 29th Street and 49-year-old Eddie Wright who is homeless.
Officers were investigating a report of squatters in a building on the 4700 block of Longshore Avenue Saturday when they found three men and a woman in a 15-by-15-foot room behind a steel door that was chained shut. The subbasement room they were in called to mind a Cold War-era bomb shelter and contained a makeshift bed, mattress and sheets, said Officer Tanya Little, a police spokeswoman.
“It was horrible,” she said Sunday. “The space was very tiny and confined.”
Weston, Gregory and Wright were charged with aggravated assault, kidnapping, conspiracy, false imprisonment, reckless endangerment and related charges, cops said.
Police are investigating the possibility that the suspects were trying to make money through access to the victims' Social Security or disability checks, Little said. It wasn't clear how they know the victims.
The 29-year-old woman and the men, who are 31, 35, and 41, have the mental capacity of 10-year-olds, police said. They were taken to a hospital for treatment and listed in stable condition. Little said the victims appeared to have no physical problems other than malnourishment.
Getting information from the victims was difficult due to their disability, police said. But the victims apparently were brought to Philadelphia about 10 days before they were found. They had apparently been in West Palm Beach, Fla., and before that in
Texas, she said.
“It's heartbreaking that people can do such horrifying things to other people,” Little said.
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