In 2010 a boy with Down syndrome was discovered in his family’s attic, starved and neglected by the one person who was supposed to care for him.
Giovanni “Govi” Eastwood was 6 years old at the time, but weighed the same as a three year old.
His mom Rachel Perez had been taken into custody for outstanding warrants and police had found her other children and taken them to a safe place but Govi remained in the attic of his Kansas home.
“She (Perez) concocted some story about where Govi was,” said Sergeant John Klingele who discovered the boy. “So they all ended up leaving and Govi was still there.”
Officers had a hunch that the boy was still in the house and returned to look again. After calling out to the boy they eventually realized that he was in the attic.
“He looked like a kid out of a concentration camp, skin and bones,” Klingele recollected when he first saw Govi. “We were told he was going to be 7 and size-wise he looked 3 maybe.”
Govi weighed just 17 pounds and couldn’t walk, barely talked, and was covered in excrement.
Starved of nutrients, the boy had lost hair on his head, his bones were brittle and bowed from rickets, and the fatty tissue on his bottom had wasted away. Medical staff said Govi wouldn’t have lived much longer if he hadn’t been rescued that night, as reported by the Kansas City Star.
