When officers responded to the Suncrest Street home early Sunday, they found the front door open and the front windows shattered, police said. The low temperature that day was 22 degrees.
Neighbors said they heard glass shattering and ear-piercing screams coming from inside the house in Knoxville for hours over the weekend.
Shikia Mosley, 35, answered the door naked and apparently intoxicated with a blanket over her shoulders, police said. When they went inside, they found garbage and animal feces scattered across the home.
Officers could see the basement through holes in the kitchen floor, the bathroom sink wasn’t working, the tub was filled with stagnant water and bedroom walls upstairs were covered in spray paint and littered with holes, police said.
Floors in the home were covered in clothing, trash and broken glass, police said.
Upstairs, police said they found five children, ages 2 to 14, upstairs. In one bedroom, a young girl and a toddler were lying on a hardwood floor covered by a coat and two more small children were sleeping on a single-sized bed with no covers, police said.
A boy in another bedroom allegedly told police their mother had been drinking and began throwing things around the house.
Police left the home and contacted youth services, saying they intended to return to take the children to a safe place. When they returned, one of the children told police Mosley had left and taken three of the children with her to her mother's home in Swissvale.
The two children went to an aunt's house nearby, and police arrived at Mosley's mother's home, where she was taken into custody, police said. The three children stayed at the home with their grandmother.
The Department of Children, Youth and Family said it didn't have any current cases involving Mosley and her children, but it did have a case back in 2017 that involved "unusual punishment."
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