In October of last year, 16-year-old Natalie Finn was found lying on the floor of her bedroom, skinny and weakened due to malnutrition and unresponsive.
Reports state that the Iowa teen was lying on the waste-covered linoleum floor of her bedroom, not breathing and covered in excrement. Police believed that she’d been living in her own waste “for some time.”
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In new court documents recently made public, authorities noted that the home in which Natalie lived with her adoptive parents, 42-year-old Nicole Finn and 46-year-old Joseph Finn, and at least two other adoptive siblings, “reeked of both human and animal waste.”
They also claimed that the blankets and sheets the children had been using were “heavily soaked” in what was suspected to be urine.
Additionally, the children’s room was reportedly unfurnished, and, “Many animals roamed freely, including well over a dozen kittens and cats. There were numerous kennels with dogs scattered inside the residence.”
Two of the surviving Finn children reportedly had bedsores and were diagnosed severely underweight by doctors.
There’s also some very damning evidence here against local child welfare workers, who failed to accurately determine what was going on in the house.
For example, they concluded that Natalie was starving herself when they were implicitly told that she was being deprived of food. They also never pursued physical examinations of the children, even though the kids reported that they were being abused.
Nicole Finn reportedly told authorities that Natalie suffered from mental health issues and that she and her siblings would urinate and defecate on the floor “out of spite and defiance.” Joseph Finn backed up her story by claiming that this was the reason for why he put in the linoleum flooring because the carpet “was so soiled by the bodily waste from the children.”
Natalie’s cause of death was officially ruled as “emaciation, which was attributed to denial of critical care.”
Nicole Finn is facing a charge of first-degree murder for Natalie’s death, as well as several other felony charges which include kidnapping and child endangerment, in relation to her alleged mistreatment of two of Natalie’s siblings, a 14-year-old sister, and a 15-year-old boy.
Joseph, Finn’s now ex-husband, is charged with kidnapping, child endangerment, and neglect or abandonment.
Their trials are scheduled to begin in October.
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