A degranged Pennsylvania couple is facing child abuse charges after they allegedly trapped a 5-year-old boy in their basement and deprived him of all care, beating him with a paddle daily, starving him and forcing him to eat his feces for sustenance.
Colleen Cassidy, 35, and the boy’s father, Charles Smitley V, 29, were arrested at their home in Monessen early Monday morning and are each facing charges of endangering the welfare of children, unlawful restraint, and simple assault, the Westmoreland County District Attorney’s Office said.
Police had been investigating the duo ever since Smitley’s father reported his 5-year-old grandson’s apparent abuse in April. Smitley had turned over custody of his son to his father when “he no longer [wanted] to care for the child,” according to court documents.
From October 2024 to April 2025, the 5-year-old victim lived with his dad, his dad’s girlfriend Cassidy and Cassidy’s 11-year-old son, who told authorities he was not included in the abuse.
When the grandfather took the young boy in, he immediately noticed the scores of bruises covering his legs and butt that he allegedly received after the couple “spanked him with a white paddle,” officials said.
The boy was also extremely emaciated, dirty and “had a foul odor,” according to court documents.
His grandfather took him to McDonald’s, where the child “complained about his stomach hurting and was observed to be walking in pain,” court records said.
He then took him to the hospital, where nurses discovered further signs of abuse and starvation, according to the documents.
The victim later explained his abhorrent living conditions to investigators and described how he would go days without eating, only to later be forced to consume his own feces. He also said he wasn’t given anything to rest on, save for a chair Cassidy would allegedly tie him to on occasion, and had to sleep on the cold basement floor.
Cassidy’s 11-year-old son corroborated the boy’s claims, according to the DA’s office.
The son added that he once walked in on the victim hidden “in a closet with his hands taped together with duct tape,” cops said.
Both children were removed from the home and are doing well, police assured.
Cassidy and Smitley were arraigned and remanded to the Westmoreland County Prison after failing to post their respective $100,000 and $250,000 bail. Their preliminary hearings are set for Aug. 22.
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