Charlotte couple accused of keeping kids chained up inside home

CHARLOTTE, NC (WJZY) - A Charlotte man and woman are facing charges after investigators say their four children were being chained to their beds and locked inside their rooms.

Social workers and officers responded to a home along the 4900 block of Statesville Road in Charlotte last Monday after receiving an anonymous tip that six children were being abused, according to a search warrant released Tuesday by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police.

The warrant states that when investigators were inside the home, they found a bunk bed in the hallway with “two metal linked chains on each end of the bed with small master locks attached to them.”

The children, ages 10, 8, 6 and 4,  were then interviewed individually by the social worker as an officer stood with the other children, who were playing with their mother’s phone taking pictures and videos, the warrant states.

One of the children went to the officer “wanting to show the pictures and video they took.” As the child was scrolling through the photos, the officer reportedly saw photos of four children with “linked chains around their wrist and waist,” the warrant said.

One picture appeared to be “an autistic 3-year-old child chained to a chair,” the warrant said.

The officer and social worker found bruising and marks on the wrist of a 9-year-old and on the ankle of a 6-year-old "consistent with and caused by being restrained by the linked chains," according to the warrant.

According to the search warrant, police seized metal linked chains from the bathroom cabinet, a bedroom closet, the bunk bed in the hallway and a tree branch outside.

The children’s mother, Melissa Gonzalez-Guzman and father, Felipe Gonzalez-Guzman were arrested and booked in the Mecklenburg County Jail. They're both being held on 15 counts of false imprisonment and 15 counts of child abuse with serious physical injury.

Both defendants' next court dates are scheduled for August 3, 2016. 

Detectives are asking anyone with additional information concerning this case or the suspect to call Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600.