Parents charged with felony child abuse after family found living in desert shack

JOSHUA TREE — The plywood shelter is covered with tin and an aqua kiddie pool.

Twigs and mattress stuffing line the roof, apparently for insulation. Nearby, in this remote stretch of desert just outside Joshua Tree National Park, canned food sits on shelves beneath a camping stove.

A San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy was patrolling there this week when he discovered a family with three children living in the shelter.

The children, 11, 13 and 14, slept for four years in the 4foot-tall makeshift home of about 200 square feet, authorities said. The land has no electricity or water.

Deputies arrested the parents, Mona Kirk, 51, and Daniel Panico, 73, on suspicion of willful cruelty to a child, and Children and Family Services took custody of the children. On Friday, Kirk and Panico were charged with three counts each of felony child abuse.

“It’s just a shame to think that these adults chose to raise these children in those conditions,” said Cindy Bachman, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff ’s Department.

Authorities initially reported that the children were living “in a box.” Capt. Trevis Newport of the sheriff’s Morongo Basin Station later clarified that the children were not being held captive.

“They’re homeless,” Newport said of the Joshua Tree family. “It’s a shelter, the shape of a box ... nowhere near what it sounded like when it came out.”

Friends of the family say their situation is not at all one of criminal abuse, but of extreme poverty.

They describe intelligent children who were involved in soccer and scouts and who were cared for as best they could by struggling parents.