Their most autistic child is um basically caged into the downstairs living area. And when I say caged, caged. He's naked. There's feces around. It's extremely messy in the area. And uh windows are boarded up. Uh I didn't see a bed. I see like a a couch kind of thing. Somebody's probably sleeping on the couch. It's a cage. It is just around noon on April 24th, 2024 in a quiet town in Nevada when police are called to do a welfare check for an 11-year-old boy who had been missing from school for over a week. The boy's parents, Jeffrey and Misty Scandlin, had not been in communication with the school, and none of their four kids have been heard from despite the school continuously attempting to reach out. While a welfare check is a very common practice for police officers, this particular stop will prove to be anything but common and will likely be a day the officers and the community as a whole will not forget. So, I'm just here uh because they asked me to be here. Okay. Based on the situation, the kids haven't been in school. One of them has been home homeschooled uh for the number of days that they haven't been in school. So, they got a few questions based on what they need to do as a school representative for truency. Okay. Does that make sense? It sounds like you got some challenges here at the house. Um, your wife and you have different, you know, schedules to probably try to handle the kids and stuff like that. That's great. It sounds like you're doing trying the hardest you can make situation work, right? So, but they still have a job to do based on, you know, their policies. Students, yes, we're just checking because they haven't been at school. Um um he's not in school today and um I think he hasn't been to school. Um uh they're supposed to be in uh Nevada Learning Academy, but they haven't been, you know, enrolled. So we just concerned to see we just want to check that they're all okay. Um so that I can bring them back to school. Um what concerned me was that I heard the banging and he said, "Let me out. Open the door." He thought it was police. He's like, "Please, let me out." So, but then when I ask if he's okay, he stay quiet. So, I just put in a shirt that I can see that he's okay. Oh, yeah. He's okay. And a kid like that, it makes sense that they would say, "Let me out." I'm sure you have, you know, like child kind of like Yeah. He's Do you mind do you mind if I come in? Yeah. Um he's a big kid. I I can come in. Yes. Okay. Um he's half moment. So, he's a big kid. Probably got some meat to him. So, hey buddy. He basically we had to do this because it keeps him from kicking holes. Mhm. Everywhere in the house. Does he have like uh he doesn't hit his head on the walls or anything like that? No. No. Okay. Um how about the other children then that are supposed to be in school? Yeah, they're upstairs. Be able to get them down here? Yeah. Hey, Sarge. Yeah. Is this set up for him? Yeah. says part Samoan. Yeah. Half Son kids. He's very strong. He just turned 11, but he's super strong. Yeah. I mean, I he's ripped off cabinets, kicked holes. His room upstairs, he you know, he kicked a hole all the way through into my bedroom. Okay. You know, it's just he, you know. Okay. So, to keep it from destroying the house, we try to keep him in here. He doesn't know how to unlock. No. Wow. Well, On this one, we had to uh we had to tie this up. And then on the other on the other door, we have a key lock. Okay. So, cuz Yeah. I mean, some some of them are very observant. Oh. Oh, dude. They are smart. S smart in ways that we don't expect sometimes. Oh, they're so sharp. Him him and my daughter, they're both autistic. So So, my concern as a safety officer is what happens in case of a fire. Oh, that that can be cut right there. It's just tied up. So, that door opens right up. Uh, and the other one has it locked. He could open it and yank it. Uh, no. Well, it's just tied up right now. It's just tied up. Right. Right. Right. But, I mean, technically Okay. It opens right up. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. They were concerned about that when they installed it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's I mean, that's what we're looking for is the safety of the situation. Did you want to go up and get the kids so we can Jeffrey explains that he and his wife have two children diagnosed with autism. One boy, one girl. However, they only keep the older boy in the homemade cage because they say he is too destructive to be let out. Hi, baby. How did you go to school today? Uh, they've been sick for about the last couple of days. Um, we're good. She doesn't she doesn't need to come all the way down. or do you have questions or uh no question? Yeah, she uh they've had the flu for about all of last week. It started with him and they were throwing up and she caught it, he caught it, whole house got it for me. So Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And that wasn't related to the school though that they had the flu. No. Okay. So commun communications communication is huge. All right. So, no matter what, call the school cuz I've even had like casinos call us to check on employees. Okay. Casinos, adults check on their adults because the adults didn't call in sick or this or that and it's been 2 days. So, we even have, you know, big corporations calling on adults employees to make sure they're okay. Okay. So, big thing is communication. Call the school, say, "Hey, she's not feeling well. Stomach flu, be out for 1 days, maybe 5 days, whatever." Same with whatever other children. So that way they have an understanding what's taking place and when we were knocking we're like well maybe they both share a car and go to work together or something you know. So yeah I was passed out and didn't know if it was just right pounding or not and so his speech isn't uh very good right now. Right. Yeah it's not okay. When he was first born I mean he he didn't actually start talking till he was about four or five years old. Okay. We thought he was just going to be non-verbal for his whole life. Yeah. But, you know, he's been going to school and basically all all his verbal skills are basically just what he wants and then what he copies and hears off of the phone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I try to communicate through with him through the the window through the plywood just to make sure he was good. I'm like, "Hey, are you okay?" You know, everything good cuz he was bum and of course the way it sounds because of his size, I mean, it sounded horrible. But I was like, "Well, he's not screaming like he's in pain or anything like that." So I was like, you know, hey, I don't see any like cause to be concerned in that aspect cuz he's yelling cuz you know, some kids on the spectrum, that's what they do, you know. I just like as long as he's, you know, if he's, you know, using his head like some of them do, as long as he has a helmet or something like that, you know, he loves his feet to kick. Doesn't look like he's got any injuries or anything like that. So that's good. Yeah. We've had to I mean, all this plywood we've had to put up just so he doesn't break windows. Yeah. Yeah. I noticed the one window was broken. I mean, that made sense when I seen it. I'm like, you know, the officers now step outside so they can communicate more freely about the case. Find out how long they've been here. Uh, how long the kids have been? How long it's been like this? Okay. Um, does he know the coming out? No, I didn't say nothing. Okay. I was about to start yelling in there and so I walked out and couple deep friends. Yeah, I was I was just trying to play cool and keep him talking. That's why I told uh I was telling the truency of like right now I'm leaving the kid right there because I don't need to have Russell 11-year-old autistic kid now. Yeah. While we're waiting for everything. Yeah. I mean the the kid is Is that for me? No. 11. Oh, they said cuz it's been about an hour. Yeah, this is unit score four. Um, but so just when the detectives come here, we we have everything set up so we can talk to them or I can talk to them as long as we have people in there. It is at this point the primary officer decides to call child protective services for assistance. So, um, the situation is uh we're probably going to we're going to need somebody in route here. So, we got our SVU on the way. um their most autistic child whose name is is um basically caged into the downstairs living area. And when I say caged, caged. Um he's naked. There's feces around. It's extremely messy in the area. And uh windows are boarded up. So, when our SVU gets here, I don't know what children may need to go with you guys, but is extremely autistic. A very strong uh young boy because he he tear he tears apart the house. He's teared cupboards off the wall and stuff like that. He's just strong and very destructive as a child with his level of autis autism. He doesn't have I'm surprised he doesn't have a helmet on, you know, so he's not banging his head against things, but like he was pounding on the plywood that's over top of the windows and it was I mean, you could hear it from the street. I mean, just thuds, thuds, thuds, thuds. But when I was trying to ask him his name and stuff, he couldn't uh he's not cognitively able to answer questions. So, with that, I mean, he's been out of school for a while, I guess, and I mean, I could understand why in a sense. Um, I don't I mean, you'd almost have to have a specialist come into the house and meet with them. Um, they've been sick, though, too. It looks I I don't see that it doesn't appear that the kids look sick right now, but there was some sickness going around last week, like throwing up, flu kind of stuff. All four children are in the home. So, all the walls are are open, but across the main entrance into the room that he's in, it's like a metal fencing that goes from the floor to the ceiling. Like um a bar, metal black bars that would you would see probably like as a fence to go into the backyard or something like that. In a sense, yeah. I mean, it's not, you know, shabby looking. It looks like they had it installed semi-professionally or something. I mean, it's it's put in there well. It's just it's a cage. Uh, I didn't see a bed. I see like a a couch kind of thing. So, he's probably sleeping on the couch. Uh, well, without going in there and testing it, it looks like there's some on the walls and possibly on the floor. Uh it doesn't look like he has direct access to a restroom. We haven't gone into the caged area um SVU. When they get out here, I'm sure they're going to go through that whole thing. Now, meet Misty Scanlin, the boy's mother, who is just arriving home from work. Hey, you Misty. Hey. So, we got called here. My name is Officer. We got called here because the Clark County School District uh truency officers were tasked to come out here um to try to make contact, make sure the kids were okay. All right. So, that's why we came out here was to assist them. Um based on them not making contact, they could hear some screaming from the inside. So, that's where we went ahead and uh they called us to assist and try to figure out what the situation was. Okay. So, we came here um and their job was to make sure that the kids were okay cuz they haven't been in school, right? and nobody's been calling the school to give the updates. So, they weren't aware that the children were sick. So, your husband, we're talking to him right now. He informed us that they were sick and that was one reason why they were out of school. Um, but there was also concerns based on uh you know, we heard the yelling from the inside, the pounding on the inside. Does that make sense? So, that that brought up Yeah, we see that. We understand that and we know that's a challenge. Um, so based on that, uh, going in there talking to your husband was asleep so it was hard to get him up. He finally came to the door. So, we were talking to him trying to understand this the whole situation of everything. Does that make sense? So, based on that, we're here now. We're going to be sticking around for a little bit. We got a few more questions to ask and go from there. Does that make sense? Did you leave work early? All right. Well, thanks for coming off early. You have a question, sir. What we're doing is uh just so you know, and I was letting your husband know, um the the pool, the whatever that is. So, that's a concern of ours, right? Um and then obviously the condition of of the house to come in kids gauge kids things everywhere, right? It's a concern of ours. So right now what we're waiting for um one of our detectives will come down. We'll talk to you guys u make sure that everything's good. Everything's good. Then we're going to get out of your hair. Um and then we'll go from there. Okay. But obviously when we open a door, you see a cage and a kid in in things everywhere in disarray, it concerns us. So that's what we're going to figure out. That way you're not like, "Hey, what are they doing? We're here. We're waiting on the detective. They'll talk to you. We'll do an interview. As soon as the interview's done, we'll figure out where we go from there." Does that make sense? Okay. Hey, real quick. No weapons in your purse or in a house or anything like that. [Music] Where are they at? They're put away. Put away where? There might be some in the in the garage. They're not upstairs or anything. We have some upstairs. Are they Were they in the master bedroom? Okay. So, the the boys share these rooms up here, right? All right. They don't have access to that right now. Okay. Are they in a safe? Are they in something that they can't get access to? They're in our room. In your room. Okay. Your room's locked. All right. Let's stay out of your room for now until the detectives get here. We go from there. Let Callahan know we're not to let everybody go through. You heard that correctly. Not only do they have an 11-year-old boy locked in a cage, the parents also have a shotgun in their room that is not kept in a safe and could be easily accessed by the children. Um, now that your wife's here and stuff like that, there's going to be a little bit more movement. Just want to make sure there wasn't any weapons. She mentioned about some shotguns upstairs, so we just ask that nobody go upstairs into the bedroom. Okay. So, um, yeah, the double doors, uh, we don't want anybody go up there. There's a few shotguns that aren't necessarily they're not the gun safe, right? They're just secured up there. So that way um we just it's just a safety thing that we have to go through. I understand. Yeah. Um when when did you have this installed then? Uh a few years ago. It was probably 6 years ago. Oh wow. Okay. So he was strong at a young age. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Jeez, buddy. That's just part of his stming. He just Oh yeah. Yeah. you know, that's that's Yeah, I get it. So, we actually have um you know, the the good thing about this is we can start a conversation and stuff. We have a team right now that called crisis response team and their main goal is to help people like this in the situation having these challenges and things like that, no matter what the age is because they're, you know, from from kids all the way up to um you know, 80-year-olds, you know. So when we uh and they also help with like suicidal people as well, but um they they come and help and provide u resources um try to help out with finding a program, a plan, you know, things that can help out the family cuz it's I know you've grew he's grown up with it, you've grown up with him and stuff in this realm. Yeah. But sometimes you get stuck in the same patterns and don't realize, you know, all of a sudden there's more resources out there, but you haven't looked for resources for 2 years. Does that make sense? Yeah. So, there might be more resources out there that you're not even aware of. Okay. You know, um I know sometimes the schools are very good at helping with resources as well. Um, but you know, they have their protocols or people they work with and we have we're kind of independent in a sense that uh our team uh it's it's a newer team. So, it's probably why you haven't heard of it, but they're they're newer at uh dealing with these situations or not with these situations, dealing with helping people. So, but they're able because they're new, they're they're grabbing all this information everywhere they can come from. and one of the main officers has an adult child that's on the spectrum and so he he knows exactly what it's like, you know, between the different triggers and things like that and they might grow out of a trigger and develop another trigger, you know, so they're a really good team that understand the situation and could help you with uh additional tools. Okay, that makes sense. Now that the officers have gotten what they needed from the parents, it is time to move on to communicating directly with the child in the cage to assess the situation more thoroughly. A gate open. The bubble guppies. A gate open. Oh, the gate open. You have you beautiful voice. I love to hear you talk. Can you tell me something else? Gate opens soon. Yes. Would that make you happy? A I can't wait to make you happy, buddy. [Music] He doesn't answer. He's just Hello. I know you want the gate open, baby. We're working on that right now. Okay. We're working on the gate right now, sweetheart. Can we talk about the words, you know? Yeah. The words, you know. You like the gate open. Why do do you like the gate open? Yes. Oh, do you like to be back here? Go back here. Here in this room. Do you like this room? Hey, buddy. Do Do you like this room? Out. You know you want the gate open. You like the gate open? Yeah. Soon. See you real soon. So guess what? Guess what? Soon. Soon gate open. Yeah. Soon gate open. Get up. Yeah. Soon. Finally, after communicating with the boy, the officers as well as child protective services decide it is time to open the gate and get the child somewhere safe to continue their investigation. Remember when we talked about gate open? Gate open. Gate open. That's right, bud. Soon. Gate open soon. You guys ready? We're ready, sir. And they're contained, right? Yes. The boy was put onto a stretcher to be evaluated and the other children were taken into child protective services custody. As for Jeffrey and Misty Scandlin, both parents were arrested and charged with one count of child abuse and neglect. They pleaded guilty to misdemeanor child neglect and were both sentenced to one year of probation.