16 kids discovered living in squalor inside Ohio home

Just days after authorities removed 16 children from a squalid home and arrested four adult relatives, the question looms over their southern Ohio village: How could this have happened, for years, unnoticed, right here?

- JULIE CARR SMYTH

Neighbors of the family in tiny Hamden, employees at local stores where they shopped and even the investigators who responded to the scene have been left to wonder that aloud and to themselves, and the limited information shared by investigators doesn't offer a full answer.

The children weren't enrolled in school, the family moved around over the last two decades, and neighbors said they'd never spotted the kids. The children remained mostly confined to a small room in the house, investigators said, under deplorable conditions.

Authorities said they had gone to the home Tuesday on an unrelated investigation and discovered the children old ages 12 to 18 years some of whom were unable to speak.

Seven were taken to hospitals, including one who was in critical condition, investigators said. Their conditions weren't immediately known Thursday. The Ohio Department of Children and Youth has temporary custody of the children.

A neighbor, Josh Odell, has a view of the backyard but said he had never seen a child.