NEW CASTLE, Ind. (WRTV) - A couple is facing charges for traveling cross-country with their children packed in the back of a moving van with more than a dozen cats.
Authorities said an anonymous call from someone claiming to be a relative tipped them off to a moving truck that had departed Pennsylvania early Wednesday. The caller said a mother, a father and their seven children and a number of felines were inside the box truck.
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The Indiana State Police are still trying to grasp the scene they discovered Wednesday night after finding the truck parked at a truck stop near New Castle.
Troopers lifted the back hatch to find five children, ranging in ages 9 to 18, crammed inside the trailer with 18 cats and all of the family's belongings.
"They were wearing coats and they had sleeping bags but they had no way to communicate with their parents in the front of the truck," Sgt. John Bowling with the Indiana State Police said.
The temperature when the children were discovered in the unheated storage area around 10 p.m. was around 32 degrees.
Witnesses, like Blaine Grider, were appalled at the scene.
"Definitely cold out, you can seem my breath right now," he said. "I can't imagine being in that truck you know all crammed together with just a sleeping bag."
The seven of the kids are now with child protective services. The parents are in the Henry County jail.
