Indiana police are searching for a man accused of beating his wife and locking one of her children in a mice-infested basement, WXIN reported.
Anthony Whighum of Muncie is accused of battery on his wife and at least one of her three children, WXIN reported. According to court documents, Whigum beat his wife’s 7-year-old son with an electrical cord because the boy “wasn’t doing his exercises.”
“We want to get him off the street,” Muncie police Detective Kyle Monroe told WXIN. “Obviously the children are safe now, the wife is safe now.
But making one child sleep in the basement that did not have a bathroom was unacceptable, Monroe said.
“Sleeping in a basement, on the floor with rats and mice,” Monroe told WXIN, “I wouldn’t even put my cat down there.”
Police said they were called by Whigum’s wife Friday morning after she left the house with her children when Whigum went to sell his plasma.
“They came up here, they were hungry, they hadn’t ate in -- the child) couldn’t tell me the last time they ate,” Monroe told WXIN.