A Florida couple has been arrested after their 5 emaciated kids were found in squalor at their Miami Beach apartment. The scene in which they were found included no electricity or food, and a non-working toilet, all while they enjoyed going out for dinner, according to authorities.
Sanel Canovic and Azra Nikocevic were taken by Miami police Tuesday on no less than 5 counts of child neglect with no great bodily harm.
Suspicions were first raised when one of the couple's children, an unaccompanied 6-year-old boy, was seen crossing 15th Street, known to be a highly trafficked area, earlier that afternoon, according to NBC6.
A pedestrian saw the child crossing the street and informed the police who arrived to see the child leaving an apartment complex — also by himself.
The police then asked the boy where he lived and he took them to his apartment in the 700 block of 15th Street, where the couple's oldest child, a 12-year-old, answered.
"He told me that he wasn't lost, that he knew where he lived, and I asked him if I could walk with him to his house just to make sure that he was going to be OK," the witness, who wanted to remain anonymous, told NBC6.
"The kid didn't look very clean," the witness said. "I think he was still wearing school uniform even though school has been out for a couple of days, his clothes were oversized and his iPad was broken, I don't know, there was something that told me he wasn't being taken care of."
Police then found four more children at the apartment, reports revealed, which had no working stove, no electricity for around two months, no food, and no working toilet.
The children told police that they hadn't eaten since 10 p.m. the previous night.
Officers on the scene found that while there was no toilet paper in the house, the toilet had feces in it and the children informed them that took showers after going to the bathroom. The apartment has been without any toilet paper for around a week, according to the daughter, and they would either use small rags or take a shower.
Authorities also found several soiled rags on the bathroom floor.
The children explained that they didn't have a way of contacting their parents but that their mom Nikocevic, 33, worked at a Miami hotel and they had no idea where their father Canovic, 40, worked.
The 12-year-old revealed, after police took her and the other siblings to the station, that she was responsible for taking care of her siblings when their parents were at work and that all five children share one full-size bed.
"The parents would frequently share a meal in the evening without providing food for the children," the reports disclosed. "They would often leave the children at home while they went out to dinner."
When police were able to get in touch with Nikocevic, 33, she arrived at the police station where she said that the apartment had been without electricity for about a month and a half because they were behind on payment of the bill.
She also admitted that she didn't know if the children had eaten.
Canovic, 40, arrived at the station later on and invoked his right to an attorney.
"The defendant and co-defendant willfully failed to provide adequate care, supervision, and the basic necessities required to maintain the victims' physical and mental health," the report concluded.
The couple were summarily arrested and taken to jail. Later on, they appeared before a judge who set their bond at $2,500 each.
