Monongahela couple charged after toddler treated for 25 bite wounds, laceration
Children found living in deplorable conditions at apartment
A Monongahela couple is facing felony child endangerment charges after their 2-year-old daughter was found with more than two dozen bite marks across her body and a laceration on her abdomen that required stitches.
City of Monongahela police were dispatched to Penn Highlands Mon Valley Hospital on July 1 when the toddler was brought in for treatment by her mother, prompting the medical staff to call officers over concerns about the child’s well-being.
The hospital staff said the girl’s mother, Abigail Jane Kachur, 31, told them that her 6-year-old son is autistic and non-verbal, and often bites the little girl, which led to 25 wounds that were in different stages of healing, according to court documents. Police said the mother told investigators that she thought that her son may have pushed the girl into a bed frame, causing the 1- to- 2-inch laceration that required a couple of stitches to close.
Workers with Washington County Children and Youth Services took custody of the girl, and officers went to the couple’s Monongahela residence at 232 Chess St., Apt. 1, to check on the other two children who lived there.
When officers arrived, they said the apartment was in “disarray” and the children were living in deplorable conditions. The children’s father, 33-year-old Paul Vince Alexander, greeted the officers at the door and told them the apartment was in poor condition because he was trying to rearrange furniture, although there was animal feces on the floor and walls, and furniture was turned upside down with no sheets on the beds, police said.
Police found two cats living in the apartment and a dead kitten that was wrapped up in a sweatshirt, which Alexander claimed he accidentally stepped on and crushed, according to court documents.
Police said the sink was overflowing with dirty dishes, some of which were covered in mold, and there were bins of stagnant yellow liquid in the kitchen, which Alexander claimed came from a leak in the upstairs apartment.
When police officers observed the children’s bedroom, they found the door was fashioned in a way that the autistic boy could not leave, so he and the toddler girl with the bite marks were effectively trapped together in the room, according to court documents. There were also no functioning lights in the bedroom, police said.
When CYS workers questioned Alexander how the toddler suffered the laceration to her lower abdomen, he said that the older boy would often push the girl. However, police said Alexander and Kuchur appeared to give differing accounts of what happened.
The couple was charged Monday with felony child endangerment, and Alexander is facing an additional misdemeanor count of possession of a controlled substance after he allegedly tested positive for marijuana while meeting with CYS workers, according to court documents.
Both are also charged with two additional counts of misdemeanor child endangerment after the autistic boy was seen wandering the street and taken in by workers at the ambulance station next to the couple’s apartment. Police said the boy was seen naked and covered in feces on May 24, and then was brought in by the ambulance station’s staff again while he was wearing a diaper on May 31.
Alexander and Kachur are scheduled to appear before District Judge Mark Wilson for their preliminary hearing on Aug. 19.