New attorney for couple in ‘animal house’ case

WEST CHESTER » An Upper Oxford couple whose home was declared unfit for human residence because of its overwhelmingly deplorable conditions have retained a new attorney in the criminal case against them, which includes counts of endangering children and animals.

Joseph Jay Stringer and Lisa Marie Stringer will now be represented by criminal defense attorney Marc J. Lieberman of West Chester, who appeared before Common Pleas Judge Analisa Sondergaard Tuesday to inform her he had been recently hired by the couple.

The Stringers face felony charges of aggravated cruelty to animals, endangering the welfare of children, and neglect of animals. Sondergaard allowed their case to be continued until March 30 after prosecutor Emily Provencher, of the District Attorney’s Child Abuse Unit, who is handling the case, did not object.

Neither of the Stringers were in court for the brief proceeding.

On June 18, state police and animal welfare authorities were called to a rural home on Street Road in Upper Oxford, south of the village of Cochranville, for a welfare check on three children seen playing unsupervised near the roadway. When police arrived, they noticed evidence of possible child abuse and animal neglect, including multiple dead and decomposing animals inside the home.

The live animals found included dogs, cats, snakes, bearded dragons, rats, a rabbit, a pig and a tarantula. They were immediately transported to the SPCA’s West Chester Campus for medical care. The deceased animals included at least two dogs, a rabbit, a pig and several cats.

A live python was said to have escaped and was last seem roaming the farmland outside the home, according to a criminal complaint. Two of the three children, whose ages ranged from 1016 years old, had black eyes.

Ultimately, Brandywine Valley

SPCA officials removed 25 animals and the remains of a halfdozen others from the Stringers’ home, inside of which which they found maggots, fleas, feces, urine and flies.

“Inside the residence there was approximately 4 inches of sewage in the basement, numerous bugs, maggots, flies, fleas, feces and urine all over residence,” State Police Cpl. Robert Kirby said at a press conference at the Avondale barracks after the discovery was made. “The house is deplorable.

My investigators told me this is one of the worst they have ever seen. No child, no adult, no animal, should be living in that house. That’s how bad it is.”

The Stringers — Joseph, 44, and Lisa, 40 — were arrested by Trooper Patrick

Kilgarif of Avondale and Officer Hayden Carroll of the SPCA in September and released on bail. They were represented by attorney Anthony DiDonato of Lancaster at their preliminary hearing, which they waived, in October. Lieberman got in the case just recently, he said, and had not had a chance to review the evidence against the Stringers.

The three juvenile children

in the home — the Stringers have an adult son — were placed with relatives and friends. As a condition of their bail, the couple are only permitted to have supervised visits with the children, and are prohibited from owning or caring for any animals.