MANCHESTER, N.H., Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Two 9-year-old brothers left on their own in Manchester, N.H., cared for themselves without neighbors noticing anything amiss, a prosecutor said.
The twins got to school on time and dressed and fed themselves for 120 days. In late fall, however, someone at their school noticed one of the brothers was wearing clothing too light for the weather and got concerned.
It turned out that the boys' uncle, Giobari Atura, had told their parents, Jerusalem and Catherine Monday, he would look after them while the parents were in Nigeria on a trip that became longer than originally planned. But Atura's idea of care was to stop by every few days to make sure his nephews were doing okay and to drop off food for them, Michael Valentine, a Hillsborough County prosecutor, said.
Atura, described as being in his 20s, has been charged with child endangerment. The Mondays are now back in Manchester, and authorities say the parents honestly thought Atura was staying with their sons, who have been reunited with them.
"The kids were so resourceful that they managed to take care of themselves and handled whatever problems that came along," Valentine told the Christian Science Monitor. "They could call for help, but they were really in charge of their own well-being."
The boys usually got breakfast and lunch at the school. But when authorities investigated, the only food they found in the apartment was ramen noodles.
There were other problems. The brothers used to watch television -- but they did not pay the cable bill.
One of the brothers said they sometimes felt lonely. The apartment also had no working telephone.
A neighbor, Rosalind Lemitz, said she never saw an adult with the twins but also saw no sign that anything was wrong.
"They seemed very independent," she told WMUR-TV. "It didn't seem like they were home alone."
