Alabama Couple Banned 7-Year-Old Son From Home, Three Days Without Food And Water

A couple accused of forcing their 7-year-old son to stay outside the house for three days and two nights without food and water have been indicted, Alabama News is reporting. The couple, Matthew Rowe, 33, and Catherine Rowe, 34, were indicted by a grand jury on Tuesday, but the court records weren’t made public until Thursday. According to reports, the parents were disciplining their son.

The Shelby County couple were picked up for child abuse charges in April after police found out the Rowes made their son stay outside for three days, during which time they “failed to properly feed and hydrate the child.”

According to court records, the 7-year-old boy had been locked outside by his parents since March 31, at a time when temperatures had plummeted to the mid-40s. The Department of Human Resources had discovered the boy on April 2 and notified the police department, who still found the boy seated on the front porch when they arrived.

#Alabama couple forced young son,7 to stay outside 3 days, 2 nights https://t.co/Fg9GXm8p5y Matthew Rowe and Catherine Rowe

— anne hillebrand (@annehillebrand2) April 21, 2016

An ambulance was called for the boy and he was taken to hospital where he was examined. Four children were removed from the Rowes’ residence and placed in DHR custody. Two of the children were biological children of the couple, the other two were stepchildren. Some of the kids were not at the residence at the time police responded to the incident, they were visiting grandparents.

Columbiana police Chief Lamar Vick confirmed that investigations were still ongoing and that neighbors were being interviewed about what they had heard or seen.

“We had a couple of people that did see the kid on the porch, but really didn’t think anything about it at the time.”

The arrest warrants for Matthew and Catherine Rowe revealed that the couple “did willfully mistreat” their son. Vick said the couple had remained tight-lipped over the allegations of child abuse.

“We really don’t know why. They declined to speak with the police. That was the way they wanted to discipline their child.”

Detectives obtained child abuse warrants against the couple and booked them in a Shelby County jail. However, they were let go after posting a bond of $15,000. Their arraignment after being indicted by a grand jury is scheduled for November 7.

The police chief said all five children would remain under police custody and confirmed that the Rowes had vacated their residence. Vick said as far as investigations went, it was established that there were no other adults living at the residence.

Is punishment excessive? Parents force teen to live in tent as punishment #kids #parenting @6abc https://t.co/VeLc4beRO0

— ASIS School Safety & Security Community (@ASISschoolsec) June 26, 2016

However, he could not confirm if the DHR had previous dealings with the Rowes. Vick divulged that there were no visible signs of child abuse among the children, but wondered why parents would go to such extremes to discipline their child.

“It’s sad that in today’s society, that someone can take punishment to that extreme. Children have to punished, but there’s a stopping point. You can’t go overboard like that.”

This is not the first time that a parent punished a child by abandonment. In July, a Southern California mother and her boyfriend left three young kids alone in the desert without shoes, food and water, when temperatures had rocketed to over 100 degrees.

According to authorities, the children, a 7-year-old girl and her two brothers aged 6 and 5, were recovered from the desert around 11:20 a.m. According to a police spokesperson, the children had been alone for 45 minutes before a passerby alerted the police.

The family, described as “local transients,” were living out of a car with their mother Mary Bell, 34, and her 29-year-old boyfriend, Gary Cassle. Fortunately, the kids did not require any urgent medical attention. Bell and Cassle were arrested by police and held on a $100,000 bail.

In Japan, a 7-year-old boy was told to get out of a car by his parents after throwing rocks at people while playing at a river earlier. He was missing for six days before he was eventually found by a soldier. The boy was without food and water. He had miraculously survived the bear-infested woods he was left to roam, walking for miles before stumbling on an empty hut abandoned by the military.

[Featured Image by Nixki/iStock]