Girl kept in dog cage, police say

The grandparents of a 5-year-old girl kept her locked in a dog cage inside their filthy, cluttered home in Nicoma Park, police say.

The girl called the home “the mean house.”

Charles Michael DeRonda, 63, and Mary Alyce De Ronda ,59, were charged Friday in Oklahoma County District Court with two felony counts of child neglect.

Charged with a felony count of child abuse was a frequent visitor, Jeremy Lee Cook, 46, of Choctaw.

The grandmother was identified by police as the child' s legal guardian. Prosecutors alleged in the charge that the child was left in the cage for extended periods of time without proper food between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15. The girl was 4 when the neglect and abuse began, according to the charge.

The girl was taken into protective custody Dec. 15 after the Oklahoma Department of Human Services was notified that an intoxicated female was seen driving away from an Oklahoma City hospital with a small child in the vehicle.

During a welfare check at the home, aD HS worker found the child to be “extremely dirty, smelly and unkept,” a police detective wrote in arrest and search warrant affidavits.

The detective described the inside of the home as “filthy with garbage and rotting food throughout the living room and kitchen area.”

“Numerous insects were found crawling on counters, floors and food items,” the detective wrote in the affidavits. “There were items stacked in the living room, kitchen, hallways and bedrooms. So much stuff that the occupants had made walkways throughout the home. The Nicoma Park Fire Department was requested and stated the house was a fire and life safety hazard.”

Police investigated further after the girl told her temporary foster parents about the cage and that her Poppy and his friend, Jeremy, would tell her “I wish you were dead” and “I am going to kill you,” according to the affidavits.

In an interview Dec. 23 with a licensed clinical social worker, the girl said she was put in the cage every day and that her grandparents and Jeremy would lock the door and not feed her or allow her to go to the bathroom, according to the affidavits.

“She demonstrated the size of the cage, by assuming a fetal position, saying that when she was in the cage, she could not move and that sometimes they would put a dog in there with her,” the detective wrote.

The girl said at night she went to bed in her own room but locked the door and put a chair in front of it “to keep the mean people out.”

Police on Jan. 5 seized a black metal wire dog crate from a storage unit as part of the investigation. The crate was reported to be 28 inches long, 18 inches wide and 19 inches high. Police have asked t he Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to test hairs found on the crate in an effort to verify the girl's account.

Nicoma Park is a small city in eastern Oklahoma County. Police reported the grandparents are divorced but were still living in the same residence.

There had been no arrests in the case as of Sunday afternoon. None of the defendants could be reached for comment. Cook also is wanted in a 2019 assault and burglary case, according to court records.