Fairfield County deputies find 4-year-old girl's bed wrapped in wire fence with door

LANCASTER, Ohio - Two Lancaster, Ohio parents were arrested after deputies say they found a caged-in bed for their 4-year-old daughter.

Fairfield County Sheriff’s deputies were called to a house on Lancaster-Thornville Road soon after midnight Tuesday for domestic violence, but discovered something shocking.

While inside the house, deputies noticed the lower part of a bunk bed was wrapped in a steel mesh fence, according to the sheriff’s office in central Ohio. The fence was designed to restrain the couple’s 4-year-old girl, deputies said.

“The pen also had an access door that had a screen door hook and sliding dead bolt. This pen was used to keep the child confined to her bed,” Sheriff Dave Phalen said in a news release on Thursday.

According to the incident report, when the girl’s mother, Jamie M. Curnell, 32, was asked about the bunk bed, she told deputies her child sometimes takes naps in there.

Russell D. Terry, 34, made the call to deputies because he said the mother of his two children was mad that he had been out drinking. Terry also told deputies that Curnell put an extension cord around his neck and tried to choke him, while Curnell accused her boyfriend of throwing stuff inside the house.

Terry and Curnell face felony charges of kidnapping and child endangerment. Both parents were taken to the Fairfield County Jail with bond set at $500,000 each, Phalen said.

The Fairfield County Prosecutor’s Office and child protective services are now helping with the investigation. Phalen said the girl and an 8-month-old sibling were put into the custody of the county's child protective services.