A Pennsylvania couple has been charged multiple times after being accused of torturing their six-year-old daughter and locking her in a dog crate overnight.
Jacob William Weight Sr., 37, and Mimi Ann Frost, 33, were charged in Fayette County with aggravated assault, corruption of minors, strangulation, endangering the welfare of children and several other charges.
The investigation began Feb. 6 when troopers were dispatched to the couple’s home in Brownsville Borough after the child became unresponsive, Pennsylvania State Police said.
When they arrived, they found the house in a “deplorable state,” littered with dog feces, trash and urine.
Footage from inside the horror house shows a large black dog crate in the living room with blankets and debris strewn across the floor.
Pennsylvania couple Jacob William Weight Sr., 37 (left), and Mimi Ann Frost, 33 (right), were arrested and charged in connection with the abuse of their six-year-old daughter
Police described the home as a “madhouse” littered with trash, dog feces and urine
Images from the house show a large black dog crate in the living room. The couple is accused of making the little girl sleep in a cage every night
Weight called 911 after the six-year-old suffered an apparent seizure when one of the other children living in the home tried to bathe her.
The children told officials that the girl had been locked in a dog crate and beaten with a broom.
“For lack of a better way to put it, she was tortured in that house,” Fayette County District Attorney Mike Aubele told KDKA.
He said Weight didn’t let emergency workers in and led the six-year-old out himself.
The little girl’s body was covered in open sores and she was believed to be septic.
When she arrived at Uniontown Hospital, she was found to be hypothermic, with a body temperature of 88.7 degrees, Aubele said.
Of the six children living in the home, only the 6-year-old was targeted, officials said. Four of the others were the couple’s children and one was a cousin.
The cousin told police that Frost tied the little girl’s hands and feet with zip ties and refused to wash her. Another child said the couple wanted the six-year-old child to eat her own trash.
Police were called to the Brownsville Borough home after the little girl suffered an apparent seizure and became unresponsive
Her body was covered in open sores and she was found to be hypothermic, with a body temperature of 88.7 degrees.
The six-year-old told a therapist that she was forced to eat dog food. She said Weight shot her in the legs with a BB gun and beat her
Another child living in the home told police that the couple wanted the little girl to eat her own urine and feces
‘The six-year-old child was left naked and without food in this cage. She would be punished if she could escape that cage to get food,” Aubele said.
There was evidence that “at least some” of the other children participated in the abuse, he added.
Police found eight dogs and two cats in the home, which they described in court documents as a “madhouse.”
According to a criminal complaint, the little girl told a therapist she had to eat dog food every night and sleep in the crate.
In addition to hitting her, she said her father shot her in the legs with a BB gun.
The girl had not received proper child care for years and did not go to school.
‘I am innocent. That’s it,” Weight told reporters as he was led to a state police cruiser. He denied ever locking his daughter in the cage.
But landlord Tim Cole described the little girl as the ‘black sheep of the family’.
Although she was “always treated differently,” Cole said he never imagined the abuse would happen behind closed doors.
Animal control officers were seen leading seven pit bulls out of the home Friday evening after they were abandoned
One of five other children living in the home told police that Frost zip-tied the little girl’s hands and feet and refused to bathe her.
Landlord Tim Cole walked and fed the dogs after they were abandoned. He described the little girl as the “black sheep of the family” but said he could never have imagined the extent of the abuse
Seven of the couple’s pit bulls were taken to Hoffman Animal Control on Friday. Workers were seen leading the dogs out of the house that evening.
The animals were left in the house while Cole walked and fed them and paid for the expenses himself.
Last month, Weight posted two “rescued pit bull puppies” for sale in a local Facebook group.
“It’s so hard because they are cute and sweet, but we can’t keep every animal we rescue,” he wrote.
All children were also removed from the home, officials said.
Jail records show both Frost and Weight were denied bail. They have to appear in court on February 20.