Philadelphia Police Find Four Malnourished People Locked in Basement

       Four malnourished mentally disabled adults were found chained to a boiler in a locked basement room that was too small for an adult to stand up straight and also reeked of waste from the buckets they used to relieve themselves, police said Sunday. Three people were arrested.

           Officers were investigating a report of squatters in a building Saturday when they found three men and a woman in a 15-by-15-foot room behind a steel door that was chained shut. The subbasement room they were in called to mind a Cold War-era bomb shelter and contained a makeshift bed, mattress and sheets, said Officer Tanya Little, a police spokeswoman.
     “It was horrible,” she said Sunday. “The space was very tiny and confined.”
            A Texas man and two Philadelphia residents were arrested and police spokesman Lt. Raymond Evers told The Philadelphia Inquirer that charges including kidnapping, conspiracy, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment were pending.