A couple who kept their three young children locked inside a squalid house for nearly four years have been jailed in a case that has shocked Spain. The pair were each sentenced on Monday to two years and 10 months in prison after being found guilty of family abandonment and causing psychological harm.
Authorities rescued the boys – twins, then aged eight, and their 10-year-old brother – from the “house of horrors” in the northern city of Oviedo in April 2025. The children had been forced to remain indoors since the Covid-19 pandemic. They were found wearing diapers, sleeping in cribs, and living in a filthy house full of rubbish and stockpiled medication.
Police officers said they discovered bags of rubbish piled up at the bottom of the stairs. The children had no television, electronic devices, or adequate footwear, and their shoes were the size they had worn four years earlier. The prosecution stated that the children had not been outside in four years, not even into their own garden, and did not know their relatives.
The children exhibited marked motor difficulties, walked with hunched backs, and struggled with stairs. Prolonged use of diapers had left them with poor bowel and bladder control. When they were rescued, they touched the grass and breathed as if for the first time, becoming fascinated by a snail.
The couple, a 53-year-old German father and a 48-year-old mother with dual German-US citizenship, had been renting a chalet in Oviedo since October 2021. The defence argued their decisions were “wrong, but not criminal.” The parents were ordered to pay €30,000 (£26,000) compensation to each child and were stripped of custody for at least three years and four months. The children are now in the care of social services.
