Highland Sheriff: 2 charged after boy found living in filthy room with door screwed shut

Larry Whitis and his wife aren’t just shocked, they are appalled at what the Highlands County Sheriff's Office says was happening just a short walk from their Avon Park home. “You’re thinking, ‘Wow.’ You didn’t think it would ever happen in your neighborhood until it happens," Whitis said Tuesday. Deputies say a nine year old boy was being abused by Jack Percy Young, the boy's legal guardian and grandfather, and Ashlee Nicole Marshall, Young's live-in girlfriend. “It’s maddening, you know, to think that somebody could treat a child like that," said Scott Dressel, a public information officer for the sheriff's office. According to Dressel, Young, 54, and Marshall, 34, were arrested Monday and charged with aggravated child abuse after detectives got a look at the boy’s room roughly two weeks prior. "If our jail was in the condition that that boy’s room was in, then we’d be in trouble," Dressel said. “There were dog kennels in the living room that were in better condition and cleaner than the room where this nine year old was being basically held.”