LARGO, Fla. (WSVN) — Investigators have arrested a couple after a young boy ran away from home and was found sleeping outside a Florida shopping plaza.
Largo Police arrested 36-year-old Melanie Anne Fulton Brown and 44-year-old Larry James Brown, Monday.
According to Largo Police, bystanders called authorities after they spotted a young boy sleeping next to a shopping plaza.
Police said the boy told them he left home because he was afraid to get hit again, and he was abused by the couple.
Investigators said the boy needed medical attention for the marks on his body that were consistent with his story.
Police said that Melanie Brown admitted to waking up the boy between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. and forcing him to clean their “filthy” home. When he would go to sleep, she would make him run in place for 15 minutes, and she would hit him with a plastic back scratcher a number of times.
Melanie Brown told investigators she did this because the boy was not cleaning the home as she requested.
Police said that Larry Brown also admitted to hitting the boy with a rubber belt, leaving welts on his body.
In the arrest report, investigators said the child was “forced to sleep with 1,000 roaches and dog feces throughout the home.”
Detectives said the boy was taken to the hospital, where doctors determined “he was in the 10th percentile for his age based off his weight.”
Officers found padlocks on a refrigerator and freezer, which Melanie Brown said were to prevent the child from “eating all their food.”
When asked where the couple kept food for the boy, officers said, Brown opened up a cabinet and multiple bugs came out.
The couple was arrested for felony child abuse and felony child neglect.
They are each being held on $15,000 bond.
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