Police told siblings were regularly locked in their room

YOUNGSTOWN — A 47-year-old Youngstown woman faces four counts of child endangering after police said they found four of her grandchildren under her supervision living in filth.

Police discovered the living conditions at the Wilcox Street house after Deborah Jean Poe called today after her two-year-old grandchild ingested two of her pills.

A 6-year-old boy told police that he and his siblings are often locked in their bedroom for long periods of time by their mother’s boyfriend. Because of that, he said he and his siblings used the floor as a toilet. He also told police that his grandmother beat them with a leather belt.

Poe of Youngstown-Hubbard Road called the fire department shortly before 9:30 a.m. today from her daughter’s home on Wilcox Street.

Poe told police her 2-year-old grandchild swallowed a Tylenol and a Buspar pill she had on the couch in a bottle that isn’t child-proof. Buspar is an anti-anxiety medicine.

The condition of the 2-year-old, taken to the St. Elizabeth Health Center, isn’t known.

For more, see Tuesday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com