KINGSTON, Tenn. (AP) – Arrest warrants in a Tennessee couple’s abuse case describe a hellish existence for four children in their legal custody, a nightmare that finally ended after a little boy was spotted walking alone along a Roane County road.
Passersby called 911, and a responding officer began asking questions. The boy’s legal guardian soon confessed, the warrants said, to burying the remains of a little girl in a barn and locking a 15-year-old boy in the basement for four years.
The two other children spent time in a wire dog cage, while all were supposedly homeschooled and appeared to be “stunted in growth,” the warrants said.
Michael Anthony Gray Sr., 63, and his wife, Shirley Ann Gray, 60, were arrested Monday on charges of aggravated child abuse, especially aggravated kidnapping, aggravated child neglect and abuse of a corpse, authorities said.
The surviving children, ages 11 to 15, were removed from their custody by the state Department of Children’s Services.