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  Fugitive Parents Busted on Appalachian Trail After Leaving Kids in Deadly Squalor

  Dan Ladden-Hall

  The parents of a girl who died in a nightmarish house fire have been arrested, two months after going on the run when they lost custody over their other four kids.

  © Provided by The Daily BeastGwinnett County Police Department

  William McCue, 47, and Carina McCue, 38, of Loganville, Georgia, were found on the Appalachian Trail by the fugitive unit of the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office. They were taken into custody on Wednesday and have been charged with cruelty to children and false imprisonment, WSBTV reports.

  Authorities have been hunting the couple ever since they vanished in May after their 10-year-old daughter, Zoe, died in a fire at their home in April. When the blaze died down, investigators found the little girl’s remains in a makeshift bed in a bathtub in a windowless room.

  The appalling circumstances of Zoe’s death were uncovered alongside what authorities described as “unsanitary and dangerous” living conditions to which the other four McCue children are also believed to have been subjected, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

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  Police found that the toilets in the house didn’t work, and the septic tank was either full or inoperable. Instead, “improvised camping-style toilets” were found at the property. None of the showers or bathtubs appeared to work either, cops said, adding that some of the children didn’t know how to use toilet paper.

  “There was evidence that the children were to not leave the home for years. There was evidence that the children were not given adequate food,” a social worker told a judge in court.

  After the fire on Easter Sunday, Zoe’s 15-year-old brother was found by authorities at a church in Rockdale County. They say he confessed to deliberately starting the fire and he was arrested on a range of charges, including murder. It’s unclear if those charges still stand. The three other siblings were taken into protective custody by the state.

  When Gwinnett police issued warrants for William and Carina McCue’s arrest in early May, the pair went on the lam. Investigators tracked the couple to Cleveland, Georgia, before they were spotted at a motel in Lawrenceville. They were ultimately found on the Appalachian Trail near Helen, Gwinnett Sheriff’s Office spokesman Ashley Castiblanco said.

  -DAILY BEAST

 

 

  Wally Wu, The Fugitive Unit

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