Police in the Israeli city of Hadera thought they would find a breathless body when they responded to complaints from residents about a stench coming from an apartment.
Instead, they discovered a 14-year-old boy who was in a severe state of negligence, which seems to have been locked in a cage, without ever going outside for 14 years!
The teenager’s parents, who are both in their 60s, only took their son out into the block’s yard and only at night.
The family moved to Israel from Russia in 2006, but never reported the existence of a child or enrolled in school.
The mother’s lawyer claims that her decision to keep him locked up in the house was made because that is how she tried to protect him because the boy had mental problems.
A tenant said he saw the boy once at the window and looked like a zombie from a horror movie.
“I saw his eyes and the way he looked at me as if they were saying ‘Help me!'” Said the tenant.
Although the parents claim that they did not abuse him, the authorities stated that the boy was sometimes kept in a homemade scrap-metal cage.