Three young children, including a disabled 9-year-old boy, were taken into protective custody this week after investigators found them in what was described as an unbelievably filthy apartment.
"The deputies described it as one of the worst living conditions they ever experienced," said Salt Lake County Sheriff's Lt. Paul Jaroscak.
A large dog lived in the upper level apartment near 300 East and 4200 South, but he apparently never went out, Jaroscak said. There were dog feces everywhere.
"Flies and maggots and bugs were everywhere," he said. "There were no clean dishes."
Three children, ages 2, 6 and 9, lived in the house. The 9-year-old has cystic fibrosis and was supposed to be receiving medication, Jaroscak said. But when deputies asked the parents where the medicine was, they didn't know.
The 9-year-old also was supposed to wear a vest with an air compressor to help his lungs function, said Division of Child and Family Services spokeswoman Carol Sisco. She did not know how long the boy had gone without wearing it. Friday, the boy was in the hospital in non-life-threatening condition to make sure he was all right, she said.
As the deputies continued looking around the apartment, they discovered even more appalling conditions.
"When they asked the children if there was any food, they said, 'We're waiting for my mom to get a paycheck,"' Jaroscak said.
The only evidence of food was bowls of cereal filled with milk that was so old it had turned brown, he said. There was also broken glass from Christmas ornaments on the floor.
"The kids said they just throw a blanket on a pile of clothes and sleep on that," Sisco said.
The deputies, however, noted there were no clean clothes anywhere in the house, Jaroscak said.
There were two toilets in the apartment. One did not work, and one was too full of feces to work, he said. In fact, it was water overflowing from the toilet to the apartment below that eventually was the tipoff that something wasn't right.
The apartment manager, who has been in the business 10 years, said the apartment wasn't the worst she'd ever seen but "it was horrible. It was really bad."
Wednesday about 9 p.m., sheriff's deputies were called to the apartment as a precaution while the manager conducted an inspection. When she knocked on the door, a man barely cracked it open and said she would have to come back later when the mother of the children was home, Jaroscak said.
The manager tried to enter and a tussle ensued. The deputies stepped in and tackled the man. He fell in a pile of dog feces where he was handcuffed. Deputies then called the mother, who was working at a company in Taylorsville, to return home, at which time she was arrested.
Jessica Dawn Allen, 24, and Dominick Cotta Gomes, 27, were arrested and booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of abuse of a disabled child, two counts of physical endangerment, cruelty to animals, interfering with an arrest and failure to comply with an officer's orders.
Allen and Gomes are not married. Gomes is the father of two of the children; Allen is mother to all three.
Despite the conditions, Sisco said the children were "pretty much OK."
"We got them in a shelter," she said. "It's a sad one. It sounds like what they were going through was pretty grim."
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