PM UPDATE: New reports are revealing the Philly's House of Horrors ringleader Linda Ann Weston may have as many as 50 victims of her sinister torture and fraud schemes. There may be more victims in Florida, Virginia and Texas, Philadelphia police said today. MORE VICTIMS?
EARLIER: A SICKENING 'House of Horrors' in which four mentally disabled adults were found
chained to a boiler has been unearthed in Philadelphia. Cops found three men and a woman, each with the mental capacity of no more than 10, living in squalid conditions, behind a locked steel door, in the sub-basement of an apartment building.
And they've now charged Linda Ann Weston, 51, Thomas Gregory, 47, and Eddie Wright, 49, with kidnapping them, so they could cash their social security checks.
Cops made the gruesome discovery when they were in the basement of the eight-unit apartment building and heard a noise behind a locked steel door that sounded as if a dog was behind it.
Police spokesman Tanya Little told the Philadelphia Inquirer that when they opened it up they found the people, along with a makeshift bed, mattress and sheets.
The low-ceiling room, which was not tall enough for an adult to stand up in contained a mattress with some bedding and a flat board with a pillow, and a boiler.
There were a few water bottles but no food and a bucket to urinate in.
She added: "It was horrible. The space was very tiny and confined."
The victims whose names were not released, were taken to a hospital for treatment and listed in stable condition as it appeared to have no physical problems other than malnourishment.
Their captors meanwhile were charged with criminal conspiracy, aggravated assault, kidnapping, criminal trespass, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment and related offenses.
Federal charges could also be added, Lt Raymond Evers toldthe paper, adding: "We're going to find every crime possible in the crime code to put on these individuals."
It has since emerged that Linda Ann Weston, 51, served eight years in the starvation death of Bernardo Ramos, 25, after he refused to support her sister's unborn child.
According to newspaper articles about the 1981 death of Ramos, Weston and her sister, Venus Weston, beat the man with a hammer, then tied him up in the closet, feeding him only three times over two months and beat him with broomsticks.
When he died, they stuffed his body into a plastic bag and dumped it in an abandoned house.
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