This week, the Polk County prosecuting attorney charged Julie Guthrie, 37, her husband, Kevin Guthrie, 32, and Janet Hall, 35, all of Pleasant Hope, with two counts each of endangering the welfare of a child. Last week, immediately after the second raid, Virginia Gambriel, the children's grandmother, also was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Those charges were also based on the raid on July 24.

The raids were at the homes of Gambriel and the Guthries. Gambriel is the mother of Julie Guthrie and Janet Hall.

According to a detective’s probable cause statement filed in court with the charges this week, the Guthries’ two children, ages 33 months and 10 months, lived with their parents in a home with “a large amount of dirty clothing, debris, and animal feces several inches thick.” While executing a search warrant on July 24, the detective found a five-gallon bucket “approximately three-fourths full of human waste” in a bedroom shared by the family.

On the family's bed in the mobile home, a bull mastiff dog "covered in fleas and a skin disease with open sores . . . was very emaciated and sick," according to the detective. Next to the dog on the bed was what appeared to be a "freshly changed dirty diaper and a remote control to the television at the foot of the bed." Other things that officers found in the home include a rabbit cage with a dead rabbit.

The probable cause statement against Hall says she let Gambriel babysit her 9-year-old twin children, and had also permanently given custody of her two other children, ages 3 years and 21 months, with Gambriel. The detective said, during the raid on July 24, the six children were confined to an area outside Gambriel’s home that was “covered with trash and sick animals.”

“Roaches, fleas and other bugs crawl around on the ground by the thousands. The children were present inside a dog kennel to have a place to get away from the animals. But the ground was still crawling with bugs,” the detective wrote.

Inside Gambriel's home, law officers say they found "the living room was full of animal cages, pens, feces, debris, and trash. There is a path through the trailer from one end to the other. Approximately 6 foot from Virginia Gambriel's bed in middle of the path was a dead dog carcass. Walking through the path to the bedroom in the backside of the trailer to the bedroom of one of Virginia Gambriel's children. Inside the bedroom were cages full of birds, quail, mice, and gerbils."

All six children were "dirty and covered in fleabites. There were also signs of possible scabies and ringworm on the children. The living conditions for the children were unsanitary and posed a real threat to health and life due to breathing the amount of ammonia and dried feces odor in the home," the detective wrote.

The Missouri Children’s Division took custody of all six children after the raid on July 24. Law officers and the Humane Society waited until Aug. 12 for the second raid so they could be sure they had enough cages and transportation and places to take the animals.

The crime of first-degree endangering the welfare of a child carries a prison sentence up to seven years, or up to one year in a county jail, and/or a fine up to $5,000.

The Polk County detective also believes Gambriel, Hall and the Guthries should be charged with animal abuse and animal neglect, but the prosecuting attorney hasn't filed those charges.