A father of three, including a toddler found unresponsive in a Gray Court home with more than 70 dead animals, is out on bond after deputies charged him with child neglect and ill-treatment to animals.
Matthew William Batton, 25, of 1922 Martins Lake Road, Gray Court was charged with three counts of unlawful neglect of children and one count of ill-treatment to animals.
According to Lt. Judy Stiles of the Laurens County Sheriff's Office, Batton was released on a $35,000 bond.
Authorities responding to the Gray Court home on July 28 found an unresponsive 2-year-old and two other children with visible bruising. Police located about 88 animals at that address, with just 12 of those animals still alive.
Stiles said the 2-year-old was sent to Greenville Memorial Hospital, but is now doing fine. The children are in the care of the Department of Social Services.
Police arrested Savannah Victoria Morgan on July 29 and charged with three counts of unlawful neglect of children and child abuse and one count of cruelty to animals. Morgan, of the same address, is the mother of Batton's three children.
The mother, who is at the Laurens County Jail, is almost nine months pregnant. According to Stiles, DSS will likely take custody of the child at birth.
Stiles said Morgan will have to appear before a General Sessions Circuit Court judge on the child abuse charge before bond is set.
Animal control removed the animals from the home. Laurens County Director of Public Works Robert Russian said the agency disposed of the dead animals and found foster homes for most of the living animals.
"The majority of the animals that animal control picked up that evening already had passed and were carcasses," Russian said.
Russian said the tally of 88 animals is an estimate as many of the animals were dead and in various stages of decay.
The animals found alive were two bearded dragons, three dogs, a puppy, four snakes and one cat. Animal control is still looking for the cat, according to Russian, but caught the other living animals.
Russian said one of the snakes was a common black snake and one of the turtles was a common turtle, both of which were released in the wild. The rest of the animals are in rescue homes or foster homes.
The animals were underfed and several needed medical attention, according to Russian. A dog that stood out to Russian had overgrown, matted fur. He said animal control officers originally thought it was a female dog until the fur was shaved off to reveal it was a male.
"It was just in terrible shape -- it had maggots in the fur, it had sores on it, it had several spots on it's body that were infected -- but was a real trooper, was not aggressive at all," Russian said. "We thought it was probably a 50 to 60 pound dog, but when the rescue got it shaved down it was more in the 30 pound range."
The dog is being cared for by an animal rescue in Georgia, according to Russian, and is in better shape.
Russian said each foster animal has a waiting period before they can be adopted.
"We let these rescues essentially foster them to start with so they can get the attention they need, the immediate attention," Russian said. "A lot of these rescues deal with these type situations where dogs have been abused, neglected, starved, and they know how to take care of them, what their needs are, that sort of thing."
Russian said all three dogs are doing well, and the puppy was probably in the best shape out of the four dogs with just slight dehydration.
"It really was despicable the condition the dogs were in," Russian said.
He said the snakes were lethargic and animal control didn't think they would make it.
"Obviously they had been starved to death, dehydrated," Russian said of the animals. "There were snakes that were obviously not kept in proper containers; they were in plastic tubs in the house. Some of them dead, rotting in those plastic tubs."
Russian said animal control has dealt with extreme situations before, but the wide range in variety of pets and the number of snakes in the house made this case different.
"It really was a kind of house of horrors," Russian said.
