Incredible moment children ‘see sunlight for the first time in four years’ after being rescued from House of Horrors where US mother and German father kept them in self-imposed ‘Covid lockdown’

This is the incredible moment children held prisoner by their parents in a Spanish ‘house of horrors’ saw sunlight for the first time in nearly four years following a police rescue.

Police in the northern city of Oviedo found the three young boys – twins aged eight and their older ten-year-old brother – in the house on Wednesday, having apparently been there since 2021.

The children’s parents have been named locally as German Christian Steffen, 53, and his American-born wife Melissa Ann Steffen, 48.

The couple have been remanded in custody and warned they could eventually be jailed for up to seven years if charged and convicted. 

Investigators were concerned the children seemed unsteady as they walked outside for the first time in years – almost half the length of their lives.

In an emotional moment as they were brought outside for the first time, they began hyperventilating and threw themselves onto the lawn to stroke the grass, Bild reports.

‘When we took them out of the house, into the garden, where they didn’t even want to go outside, they saw a snail and went crazy,’ one officer told El Mundo. ‘They were scared.’

‘We have given three children back their lives,’ said Chief Inspector Francisco Javier Lozano after the raid.

Police in Oviedo visited the property on Monday, during the Spanish blackouts, and were horrified by the conditions the children were living in, DW reports.

It is understood the family closed off to the world during the Covid-19 pandemic, forbidding the children from going outside, and making them sleep in cribs.

An investigating source said the parents bought medication containing THC, the main psychoactive element in cannabis, on the black market and gave it to the children as treatment for ADHD.

Images taken inside the house showed horrifying drawings of monsters with sharp teeth scrawled on the cots of the children. The children were still wearing nappies when police found them.

Police in the northern city of Oviedo found the three young boys – twins aged eight and their older ten-year-old brother – in the house on Wednesday

Two of the children are lead from the house in Spain after police intervened on Wednesday

Spanish police said the house was in a disgusting state, with hoards of rubbish and mountains of accumulated medicines

Authorities had previously received a tip from a neighbour, who raised concerns they had never seen the children go to school, DW reports. 

Police became suspicious when they noticed that only one man was registered as living in the house – but his supermarket orders were enough for several people.

The parents, a 48-year-old woman with German-American citizenship and a 53-year-old German man, were ultimately arrested and the children placed in care.

Spanish police said the house was in a disgusting state when they entered, with hoards of rubbish and mountains of accumulated medicines. 

Surfaces were covered in filthy pet excrement and the family also had a cat with a massive tumour. 

The children, two eight-year-old twin boys and their ten-year-old brother, were found wearing nappies and discovered they were forced to sleep in caged beds during their ordeal.

Reports emerged overnight that the youngsters were suffering from severe constipation after being rescued because they weren’t allowed to go to the toilet when they wanted. 

A source close to the ongoing investigation said: ‘They had a timetable and a maximum number of times a day they could use the toilet because the rest of the time they had to wear nappies.’

A shocking paediatric report identifying their ‘severe constipation’ flagged up faeces in their intestines because of the long wait they endured between relieving themselves, El Espanol reported.

‘At first, there was nothing particularly striking,’ Lozano said of their call to the house on Monday. 

But the parents started behaving strangely when they asked to come in.

‘He was disheveled, barefoot. He asked us to wear masks and keep our distance,’ one officer told El Espanol. 

‘He immediately said there were minors in the house. But to our surprise, not only did that happen, but neither parent denied that they had been isolated for years, nor did they show any special knowledge of having done anything wrong.’ 

When they were allegedly allowed to enter the property, they noted that the parents put ‘up to three masks on the children’ before letting them in, El Mundo reports.

The mother told the officers to be careful as her children were very sick.

The three young boys were freed having apparently lived solely inside the house since December 2021, at the height of the pandemic.

The minors were barefoot, wearing diapers and still sleeping in cribs. When they wanted to take them out of the building, they did not even have shoes of their size, since they had not been bought shoes for years. 

The motivation of the parents for keeping the children locked in their own home is not yet known.

Investigators speaking to El Comercio suggested that the parents suffered from ‘Covid syndrome’ and lived in fear of the virus.

Officers said the children did not appear sick, but were ‘dirty’.

‘The children were in a deplorable state,’ one officer told El Mundo.

‘They weren’t malnourished, because they were fed. But they were also dirty and completely disconnected from reality…’ 

Spanish police said the house was in a disgusting state, with hoards of rubbish and mountains of accumulated medicines. A bathroom appeared to be used for a sick cat

Terrifying drawings by the children on a caged bed. The children were aged 8 to 10

The German-American mother, 48, reportedly told police that she and her German husband, reportedly a philosopher from Hamburg, thought it was the best way to keep them safe.

Inside the house, police found a large supply of ADHD medicine and face masks.

The children were kept out of school and forbidden from leaving the house.

Doors were locked and the windows were permanently closed. The children were not even allowed to go into the garden.

El Mundo, citing local testimonies, said the father always went to the gate of the property wearing a mask, both to pick up takeaway deliveries and mail. 

Police said when the children were freed, one of them knelt on the grass and ‘touched it with amazement’.

Over the years, the children were kept so hidden that even neighbours did not realise they were in the house.

The husband and wife duo are now being held in custody without bail pending further investigations following the discovery of the children.

The operation and investigation into the children began on April 14 after a resident of the area raised the alarm. 

The woman had heard voices that sounded like children coming from the house although she had never seen anyone leave the home to play or go to school.

The blinds were always closed and there was no clear sign of life, neighbours said. 

‘Honestly, I don’t remember knowing it was inhabited. The blinds were always down, no noise, no cars. Nothing to indicate life,’ said Rafael Ruiz, who lived opposite. 

But, after several days of surveillance, investigators were clear that more than one person had to live there.

They saw movement through the few windows that were not closed, and assessed somebody must be inside from the number of boxes of food orders that the man brought into the home. 

The chief commissioner of the Local Police of Oviedo, Francisco Javier Lozano, gave a press conference on Wednesday in which he explained the details of the operation that saw the arrest of the couple at 2.45pm on Monday. 

A German couple who had been living cut off from the world kept their children sequestered for more than three years in Spain 

At the moment, the reasons that led this family to live in captivity since 2021 and in unsanitary conditions inside the Asturian villa are unknown

The initial search of the house was made more difficult because Spain had been plunged into darkness by an electricity outrage.

When police knocked on the front door, the father answered but asked the officers to wait for a few minutes so the children could put their masks on.

One officer told the Spanish press: ‘They were very scared and around the mother, who told us all the time that the little ones had serious pathologies and that we should not approach them. 

‘They had three masks each on top of each other. They were oblivious to any contact with reality.’

At the moment, the reasons that led this family to live in captivity since 2021 and in unsanitary conditions inside the Asturian villa are unknown.

The children spoke mostly in English. After being evaluated at the Central University Hospital of Asturias, they have been placed under the guardianship of the Government of the Principality.

It is not ruled out that their parents will be charged with crimes of habitual abuse, abandonment of minors, and against fundamental rights.

As a summary of the operation, the chief commissioner of the Local Police of Oviedo, Francisco Javier López Lozano said: ‘We have dismantled the house of horrors’.

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