A husband held his family hostage

How could someone live this way

Raymond Daniel Thurmond from Lavonia, South Carolina, held his wife and 4 kids hostage for 3 years in a filthy mobile home.  The stench was so bad that investigators puked when they entered the house and one had to wear a gas mask.

He used padlocks on all the doors and locked them inside and none of their neighbors even knew his family existed.  This town only has about 2,000 people in it so it isn't very easy to keep a secret there.

There were maggots all over the house and anthills under all of their sleeping areas and garbage piled so high that you couldn't even walk through it.

I watched this video at http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/14/captive.family/index.html#cnnSTCVideo and it seriously made me wanna vomit.  There are spiders everywhere; bug shit on the counters and the toilet is ew. 

Apparently all his neighbors really liked Raymond and never really noticed anything wrong until Raymond's family went to the authorities and "They said they had a mother and four kids, and apparently they'd been kept at home, and there was some abuse allegations and the dad wouldn't let them leave."

The mother claims that her kids were home schooled but when investigators went to the mobile home all they found were a couple of kids books and some dictionaries.  It shows the cart of books in that video.  One of the daughters is 14 and she has never been to school before.

So sad.. :(

The landlord said that she will have to rip out the floors and paint it all again but I think she should just tear it down because it is disgusting.  I have seen some pretty dirty places before on Oprah when they try and help hoarders but this definatly tops it all.

Authorities have been cleaning it for a solid week and still need a lot more time.

Ew.. How could someone live like that??? How could someone treat their family like that?

He should be padlocked away for the rest of his life. 

If you would like to see what he looks like .. CLICK HERE