ANDERSON — An Anderson County couple are accused of making their four children live in a house full of feces and garbage without any food.
Charles Wayne Bolt and Lea Marie Bolt of Anderson are both facing multiple charges of neglecting their children. The oldest child is 15 and the youngest is 5.
Deputies from the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office say they went to the Bolts’ home last week after two of their children got into trouble.
The deputies had been out on patrol when they heard a call about several children tearing up the skate park behind the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club on Evergreen Street. The children confessed to deputies that they had torn up a ramp at the park. Two of the children at the park belonged to the Bolts, and deputies drove them from the park to their house on R Street.
An Anderson County deputy’s report says that as officers walked up to the porch, “a strong smell of garbage and feces was immediately smelled.” One deputy knocked on the door as the other shined a flashlight into an open window beside the door.
“When I shined my light into the window, I noticed that a bed had a large amount of animal feces on it, along with numerous amounts of trash on the floor,” the deputy’s report says.
The report says the children’s father came out of the house “and immediately shut the door and locked it.”
Deputies told the father that they needed to see inside the house.
“I entered the residence … and immediately noticed more feces on the floor and numerous amounts of trash in the living area,” the deputy’s report says. “I asked where the kids slept and he (the father) pointed to a mattress on the floor that had trash on it.”
According to the report, deputies found squalor throughout the house.
The kitchen was cluttered with trash and beer cans and the sink was “full of some type of liquid that was brown and had food in it.” Deputies found no food in the refrigerator or kitchen cabinets. They found more beer cans in the master bedroom and a water heater leaking in the hallway.
The Bolts were charged with neglect on April 21.
They were released from the Anderson County Detention Center after each posting $12,000 in bail.
The children were turned over to child-welfare agents.
