LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) – Neighbors said filthy children regularly climbed into trash bins and scavenged for food behind the West Texas house where 11 children lived with their parents. Other residents heard screaming at night – one described “shrieks of terror” – that were quickly followed by loud music to cover the sounds.
“It never stopped whenever they were living there,” neighbor Paige Figge told a judge last week, after the children were taken into state custody.
The testimony came during a court hearing for William and Claire Rembis, who have faced child welfare investigations in at least three states since 2001. The couple is now accused of neglect in Lubbock, where one investigator suggested the family may be moving to avoid such investigations, which are difficult to track across states.
The couple denies the allegations, saying they move for jobs and that Texas officials are targeting them because they choose to homeschool their family, oppose vaccinations and simply have so many children.
“They don’t eat out of the trash,” 36-year-old Claire Rembis told The Associated Press outside the courtroom in Lubbock. Her 48-year-old husband called the allegations “ridiculous.”