( NYPost )
An Indiana father whose infant child was found nearly eaten alive by rats and disfigured in a pool of blood will spend more than a decade behind bars after a judge slapped him with the maximum sentence.
The 6-month-old baby was discovered in his bassinet covered in blood with more than 50 rat bites to his body, face and extremities — with his tiny fingers gnawed down to the bone — when Evansville police responded to the “house of horrors” on Sept. 13, 2023, according to the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor’s Office.
Prosecutors said the infant nearly died from blood loss and is now permanently disfigured.
The baby’s father, David Schonabaum, 32, was sentenced on Wednesday to 16 years in prison after a jury convicted him last month of three felonies related to the neglect and endangerment of his children, Fox 59 reported.
“This case is horrific, and we will live with the images of this baby forever,” Prosecutor Diana Moers said in a news release.
“The baby lived in an absolute house of horrors along with his siblings and a pet dog.”
Police arrested Schonabaum, his wife Angel Renee Schonabaum, 29, and her sister, Delania Thurman, after the father called 911 to report that his infant son was covered in blood and severely injured by rats inside their residence.
The tragic tot was flown to an Indianapolis hospital where he was treated and given a blood transfusion after his body temperature dropped to 93.5 degrees, according to police records.
Authorities said the infant suffered the most traumatic injuries to his right hand – with each finger and thumb missing flesh, exposing bone all all five fingertips.
The family’s home on South Linwood Avenue — where the boy’s 3- and 6-year-old siblings and 2- and 5-year-old cousins also lived — was in deplorable condition, infested with rats and full of clutter, trash, bugs and rat feces, prosecutors said.
But the rats’ mauling of the baby was not the first time the vermin targeted children at the residence.
Three kids in the home had previously been bitten by rats while they were sleeping, prosecutors said, adding that the Indiana Department of Child Services provided aid to the house to address safety concerns prior to the baby’s horrific mauling.
Prosecutors said the baby’s father failed to address issues that would have provided the children with a safe environment to live in.
“It is completely shocking to the conscience that anyone would live in these conditions, much less allow their children, baby, and animals to live among absolute filth when they cannot help themselves,” Moers said.
“It is also unimaginable how a rat was able to do such damage to this infant before his father called for help.”
The child’s mother pleaded guilty last week to felony neglect charges and will be sentenced on Oct. 24, Fox 59 reported.
Thurman was sentenced to two years of probation in April, 14 News reported.
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