By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
Kirotv.com reports a lawsuit has been filed against the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services on behalf of two Lewis County girls claiming the agency failed to stop years of abuse and neglect by their mother despite repeated warnings.
News reporter Kevin McCarty writes DSHS received two dozen reports over a period of six or seven years but allowed the children to stay with their mother Theresa Hutton at the rural property where she took in dozens of dogs, cats and horses.
It wasn’t until the summer of 2007 after a highly contagious disease prompted authorities to euthanize more than 40 dogs, and the eldest child at age 12 was found so malnourished she weighed only 60 pounds that the girls were removed from the Toledo area home to an aunt and uncle’s care.
The mother was convicted in 2009 of second-degree criminal mistreatment and sentenced to four years in prison.
Read about it here [1]