Uncle tipped cops off about little girls in filthy Marietta house

When he saw his half-brother smack his four-year-old daughter, Patrick Shannon decided it was time law enforcement saw the squalid conditions in which James and Anne Cardona were raising their little girls.

"I had had enough, basically," said Shannon, 30. Cobb police arrested the Cardonas on Aug. 16 and moved their grossly overweight, lice-ridden daughters into state care.

When the officers arrived one couldn't handle the stench, vomiting off the front porch, Shannon told the AJC Wednesday. "They couldn't believe what they were seeing," he said.

The 5-year-old girl, weighing 158 pounds, was unable to walk 10 feet without wheezing. Police found her 4-year-old sister in a urine-soaked diaper, sucking a bottle. She weighs more than twice the average for a girl her age.

Both girls remain in state care, as does Anne Cardona's  bedridden mother, Gloria Searcy, who was suffering from bedsores. Shannon and his sister, Frances Cantrell, applied to take temporary custody of their nieces but were denied. Searcy's whereabouts are unknown.

"No one's told us anything," said Shannon, who's spent much of the past week cleaning up his half-brother's filthy home. The last time the whole family was there, James Cardona was forcing his 4-year-old to eat fish sticks, Shannon said. The girl, who weighed 89 pounds at the time, resisted.

"He kept shoving them in her face," said Shannon, who was helping his half-brother remove a tree that had fallen into their back porch. Cardona then allegedly slapped the girl, leading to the 911 call.

Meanwhile, the Cardonas' neighbor, Linda Stumpf, was trying to figure out a way to involve authorities.

"How could I do it without them knowing it's me," she said, fearing how James Cardona might react.

Stumpf, 46, said she used to regularly visit the house, owned by Searcy. "There was nothing gross about it," Stumpf said. "You could tell they didn't have much money, but it was livable."

Then the Cardonas moved in. "They wouldn't let you come inside," Stumpf, 46, told the AJC. "They'd just barely open the front door."

She saw the girls playing in the yard or forlornly looking out the window. They were often barefoot and shirtless.

About a month ago, Stumpf, who works with a commercial pest control company, started noticing cockroaches in her yard. Then came the acrid smell.

Now Stumpf is helping clean up the Cardonas home, a task that's required plenty of ammonia and a stalwart constitution.

"There's so much clutter," she said.

And even more roaches.

"The kitchen's just overrun with them," Stumpf said. "We opened the box of a Monopoly game and hundreds of roaches scattered out."