Parents Kept Twins, 5, in a Filthy Cage

An Arizona couple were in jail last night for allegedly keeping their five-year-old twin sons in makeshift cages for nearly 20 hours a day, and feeding them through a small hole.

Police in Phoenix were told about the boys' plight by an elder brother, aged 20, and said they arrived at the house to find the children lying on soiled sheets covered in cockroaches in two cots wired together and covered with plastic crates.

The improvised cages had been sealed together and the only opening was a T-shaped hole through which the boys had been fed, the police said. The boys appeared unable to talk and had not been toilet trained.

Etelvina Rodriguez, 42, told the police that her husband, Louis, 69, was unwell and had been unable to look after the boys, so the cages had been used to stop them straying.

The boys had been let out for a few hours each evening when their mother got home from work.

The parents were charged with child abuse and kidnapping. The twins were placed in state custody, as was a boy aged eight, said to have enjoyed more freedom.