Chris Eder was one of the neighbors who spotted the children after they climbed out a window of the home and onto an air conditioning unit before running off into the street. It was a sight she will never forget, and she immediately knew something was wrong. "They didn't have any clothes on. None. Their hair was, you know, it just looked like it had never been brushed," Chris recalled, but that wasn't the worst of it.
In addition to being unclothed, the children were covered in blood, feces, and bruises, but it was the look on their faces that really struck Chris. "I'm not going to ever forget the way they looked when they came running out of that house, never forget that," said Chris, who called 911. "Their faces [were] pure bewilderment. They were just looking all around. I don't think they'd ever been outside before," she continued. When neighbors tried to talk with the children, they were met with confusion, according to Fox 6.
Koch, who reportedly paced and swayed her body, appeared agitated and overall disheveled. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so afraid," she repeated over and over. When officers entered the residence, it became clear why she seemed so uncomfortable. Inside the home, police found deplorable conditions, described as a "terrible hoarding situation" with the floor barely visible beneath all the debris. The house reeked of feces and urine, and the children's room had feces smeared all over the walls, but that wasn't the only thing covered in excrement.
The children were also covered in feces as well as blood, bruises, and red marks, prompting authorities to transport them to the hospital. In fact, there was so much feces in the children's hair that their heads had to be shaved at the hospital because it was so terribly matted with excrement. Disturbingly, when their mother was told about this, she simply replied that it was "okay" because the children needed a haircut. Of course, there was nothing okay about the children's condition, and authorities were about to make that abundantly clear.
