4 children taken from ‘inhuman’ home

The boy’s mother, 27-year-old Kristin Paquette, whose second-floor apartment was buried in so much trash that officers could not see the hallway floor, told police she locked the boy in an attic bedroom because she could not control him and he would “interrupt [her] cleaning,’’ according to a police report.

The boy’s 6-year-old brother told police that his sibling “was bad, so mommy put him upstairs,’’ something that happens “a lot,’’ the report says. And Paquette’s children told police, “Mommy does this when she gets angry,’’ prosecutor Dan Harren told a judge yesterday during her arraignment in Lowell District Court.

A single mother of four, Paquette pleaded not guilty at her arraignment to charges of reckless endangerment and assault and battery on a child causing bodily injury and was ordered held on $10,000 cash bail.

Calling the conditions in Paquette’s Lenox Street apartment “inhuman,’’ Deputy Superintendent Arthur Ryan of the Lowell police issued a statement expressing gratitude to the anonymous caller who reported the child’s plight.

“Your brief call alerting us to this situation could very well have saved a life,’’ he said.

Alison Goodwin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Children and Families, said the agency took custody of Paquette’s four young children Thursday. Two of the siblings, including the 5-year-old, were placed in foster care, and the other two were with relatives. Goodwin refused to disclose whether the agency had any prior dealings with the family, citing privacy laws.

But an official familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity said the Department of Children and Families previously investigated Paquette after receiving a neglect complaint involving at least one of her children. The official said the case was closed last December because the agency concluded that Paquette had received the help she needed.

Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr., whose office is prosecuting Paquette, said yesterday that she was “engaged in an unacceptable, warped way of disciplining children.’’

“No matter what your standards of discipline are,’’ he said, “there can be no agreement that locking a child in a sweltering hot attic without ventilation is an acceptable form of disciplining a child.’’

Leone said his office will assess the family’s history and conditions in which the children have been living to learn “what was going on in those four walls and whether there should have been services’’ provided.

But Paquette’s father, Alfred Paquette, who attended her arraignment, defended her, telling reporters afterward that she was overwhelmed with the challenges of being a single mother and having a special needs child.

“My daughter is not an evil person like they tried to make her out to be,’’ he said. “She has a child that needs special help.’’

He said his 5-year-old grandson has a chronic lung disease, suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and acts “like a child on steroids.’’ His daughter, he said, is struggling to raise a 3-year-old daughter and three sons, ages 5, 6, and 9, with little assistance from their fathers. And, he said, she has been trying unsuccessfully to get help for the 5-year-old.

“It’s not her fault or his; she was just totally overwhelmed,’’ Alfred Paquette said.

Police said they received an anonymous call at 2:43 p.m. Thursday alerting them that a 5-year-old boy was locked in the attic and asserting that this was “an ongoing issue.’’

Officers said that when Paquette opened the door to her apartment, “the odor of feces and urine became almost unbearable,’’ and that as they walked to the attic “the hallway was completely filthy, and the floor could not be seen because of the spoiled food, trash, and clothing that were lying on it,’’ according to the police report.

Hundreds of flies were swarming around a stained mattress on the floor, the report said.

When Paquette unlocked the door to the attic, her son was standing there naked, covered in feces from head to toe, crying to “go downstairs,’’ the report says.

Police asked how long the boy had been in the attic, and Paquette “replied with a very nonchalant manner and tone, ‘maybe an hour or so; I’m not too sure,’ ’’ according to the police report.

Human feces throughout the room, including finger markings along the wall, appeared to have been there a considerable amount of time, the report says.

The boy also had several bumps on his forehead, the report says.

Alfred Paquette said his grandson “comes down late at night and throws food around, and he fights with his brothers and he bangs his head against walls.’’

Paquette’s uncle, Richard Paquette of Lowell, said the 5-year-old boy sleeps in one of two attic bedrooms.

“For her to lock him in his room isn’t unusual,’’ Richard Paquette said in the courthouse hallway yesterday. “People lock their kids in their rooms all the time.’’

Alfred Paquette, who lives in the Niagara Falls, N.Y., area, said he had been at his daughter’s apartment earlier Thursday when he picked up the 9-year-old to take him to a Red Sox game, and the 5-year-old “just came downstairs and he was fine.’’

“There was absolutely no problem,’’ Paquette said.

He disputed police allegations that the apartment was in deplorable condition. “The house wasn’t neat and tidy, but shouldn’t have been condemned,’’ he said.

But Lynn health director Frank Singleton said city health inspectors condemned Paquette’s unit Thursday because it was filled with feces, vomit, and trash.

Paquette’s boyfriend, Marcus Wilson, who lives with her and is the father of her daughter, defended her in a brief telephone interview last night, saying: “She’s a good mother. I leave my daughter there with her, and I wouldn’t even think that she would harm her.’’

Wilson, 27, said he had left the house for an hour Thursday to play basketball and returned as the police were taking the children away. He said Paquette had just put the 5-year-old in his bedroom “until she finished doing the dishes, and then she was planning to give him a bath and take him to the park after she finished.’’

He disputed allegations that the apartment was filthy and said the window was nailed shut because the 5-year-old “kept opening it and throwing stuff out.’’

In court yesterday, Paquette’s lawyer, Kathleen Moore, said: “This is certainly sensational, but also a tragic and sad situation. She’s a woman who needed help, but didn’t know how to ask for it.’’

The incident was not Paquette’s first brush with the law.

Two days after Christmas 2004, she was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon after a live-in boyfriend told police she stabbed him in the arm during a heated argument. The case was initially continued without a finding, while Paquette was placed on probation and ordered to take anger management classes, according to court records. The case was closed in 2006.

Correction: Because of a reporting error, this story misstated the title of the person who said that the apartment had been condemned. Frank Singleton is the Lowell health director.