A six-month-old infant from Indiana was subjected to a horrifying ordeal last week when he was bitten over 50 times by rats while he was asleep in his crib. The infant’s parents, David and Angel Schonabaum, were taken into custody and charged with child neglect after they discovered their son covered in blood. Delania Thurman, the child’s aunt who resided in the same house, was also apprehended on similar charges.
The infant, who had sustained bites on various parts of his body including his forehead, cheek, nose, thigh, foot, arm, fingers, and toes, had lost a significant amount of blood, as per the arrest affidavits. The rodents had gnawed his right arm from his elbow to his hand, and parts of his fingers were bitten off, exposing the bones, as stated by the police.
The child was airlifted to a hospital in Indianapolis, where he received a blood transfusion after his body temperature had plummeted to 93.5 degrees. Evansville police Sgt. Anna Gray described the horrifying scene as one of the most severe cases of child neglect she has encountered in her decades-long career.
The father of the infant informed investigators that they had been dealing with a rodent problem since March and had hired Terminix exterminators to treat the house. The family’s residence on South Linwood Avenue, which was also home to the boy’s siblings aged 3 and 6, and cousins aged 2 and 5, was found to be cluttered with trash and rat feces.
This was not the first instance of children in the house being bitten by rodents. On September 1, two children from the house informed their school teacher that they had been bitten on their toes by mice while they were asleep. Four days later, a representative from the Indiana Department of Child Services visited the house. Thurman, however, dismissed the bite marks on the children’s toes as scratches from the bed frame.
The Department of Child Services had been visiting the house twice a week since April due to previous reports involving the children. These included a claim last year that a child was injured due to lack of supervision and a claim in June that David Schonabaum had physically abused one of the children. The Department of Child Services did not comment on the neglect allegations.