PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Three people have been charged with holding captive four mentally disabled people, one of them chained, in a Philadelphia subbasement, police said.
The three -- Linda Ann Weston, 51, Thomas Gregory, 47, and Eddie Wright, 49 -- were arrested and accused of holding the four captive and stealing their Social Security checks, CNN reported.
Turgut Gozleveli, the landlord of a converted movie theater, now a seven-unit apartment building, suspected something was wrong when he found a dog dish in the basement Saturday, the report said. He eventually found the four mentally disabled people, looking malnourished and surrounded by excrement, in the tiny 10-by-15-foot subbasement room.
"This was a total surprise," the landlord said, CNN reported. "I never expected to find people. I just expected to find a dog." The four "acted like children," he said. They apparently had been in the room for about a week.
The alleged victims included a 29-year-old woman and three men, 31, 35 and 41.
Philadelphia police Lt. Ray Evers said the three suspects and four alleged victims apparently had been traveling together and had been in Texas and Florida before coming to Philadelphia.
Evers said Watson was the alleged ringleader, and had been convicted of murder in Philadelphia 10 years ago, serving eight years in prison.
The victims suffered from bed sores and "injuries that are very, very hard to describe," Evers said. They were taken to a hospital where they were listed in stable condition.
