A suspect arrested after police discovered children chained to a bed in their mother’s apartment is an illegal immigrant with a history of deportation, according to Border Hawk. The police were alerted to potential child abuse and visited the Fairfax County residence on August 15.
When officers knocked on the door, they heard a “chain rattling” inside. Upon entering, they saw a chain “wrapped around a post next to a sleeping cot” in the living room, as reported by Fox 5.
Two boys were found with gouges on their legs that matched the “shape and size of the chain.” Police interviewed the other occupants of the apartment, including the boys’ mother, Wendi Del Cid Rodriguez, 47, and her boyfriend, Franklin Arquimedes Viera-Guevara, 29.
Both Rodriguez and Viera-Guevara admitted to chaining “the children up by the ankle for short periods of time to ‘scare them’ so they wouldn’t leave the apartment.” They claimed the children were not left alone while chained.
However, a third witness, a roommate, contradicted this story, stating that the couple often left the boys “unsupervised and restrained” and would only unchain them when they were home.
One of the boys managed to use the roommate’s smartphone