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Background: The Upshur County Sheriff”s Office in Buckhannon, W.Va. (Google Maps). Inset (left to right): Joshua Vincent Moore and Kayla Spruill (Tygart Valley Regional Jail).
An urgent 911 call from a teenager in West Virginia led police to uncover a troubling scene involving a young child. Upon their arrival, officers discovered a 4-year-old child with autism locked inside a room.
According to WDTV, a CBS affiliate, the authorities arrested 40-year-old Joshua Vincent Moore and 36-year-old Kayla Spruill on March 5. The pair faces charges of child neglect resulting in potential harm. The ordeal began when the couple’s 18-year-old daughter dialed 911, reporting a domestic altercation in their home, as detailed in a criminal complaint from the Upshur County Sheriff’s Office obtained by WDTV.
In their investigation, deputies found the young child alone in a bedroom, raising serious concerns about the child’s welfare.
As reported by The Inter-Mountain, deputies engaged Moore and Spruill in a discussion about the alleged domestic dispute upon reaching the scene. Spruill reportedly claimed that Moore accidentally struck her face with a phone, resulting in a “small laceration” on her lower lip.
The daughter informed the police that such incidents were not unusual, noting that while physical altercations occurred, Moore’s abuse was more frequently psychological and emotional towards Spruill.
One of the deputies asked about other children in the house, and the daughter led them to a bedroom secured by two locked gates instead of a door. Inside was a 4-year-old child described by the daughter as having nonverbal autism. She told police that her parents had locked the child in the room “for [their] own safety.”
According to the complaint, the child was naked with blue stains on their feet and mouth. When the police made the discovery, the child was allegedly trying to finger paint with their own feces.
The daughter told police that her parents asked her to skip school to watch the 4-year-old. She said Moore had to work and Spruill was not home. Police said the teenager told them that Moore often locked the 4-year-old in their room while he “smokes weed and plays video games.”
Deputies then spoke to Spruill, who allegedly admitted that she and Moore would lock the 4-year-old in their bedroom for safety reasons because the child would “elope.” After the deputies allegedly smelled alcohol on Spruill’s breath, they administered a breath test and determined that she had a BAC of 0.1. Police said Spruill claimed she went to her friend’s house after work the previous day and spent the night. While she was there, she claimed that she and her friend split a bottle of wine and watched a movie.
Police said Spruill stated that she returned home at 11:30 a.m. on March 5. The breath test was conducted at 2 p.m.
When police spoke to Moore, he said he smoked marijuana when he woke up at 3:30 a.m. that day, then went to work, returning home at 1:30 p.m. He told deputies that Spruill also smoked marijuana that day before leaving for work and leaving her teenage daughter to watch the younger child.
Moore and Spruill were taken into custody and remain at the Tygart Valley Regional Jail, where they each are being held on $25,000 cash bonds. Both are scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing on March 13.