Police: Tulsa dad, high on Oxycontin, locked toddler in dog cage

Police in Tulsa, Okla., said they found a toddler covered in feces and locked in a small metal dog cage after a neighbor spotted a 4-year-old girl naked, crying and locked outside her parents’ house.

It was in the low 40s Sunday. The father, William Todd Lewallen, 47, was found drunk or high in bed, and another naked 3-year-old was with him, police told the Los Angeles Times. He was arrested on suspicion of child neglect.

The neighbor called police after the child cried in the backyard for 20 minutes and no one answered the door, police said. The neighbor wrapped the girl in a blanket and took her into his own home. Police broke into Lewallen’s house when they spotted the other child in the cage through the window.

Lewallen was wrapped in blankets when officers found him, Tulsa Police Corporal Ken Simpson told The Times. When officers interviewed Lewallen, “he revealed to the detectives that he had taken several OxyContin and a beer as well,” Simpson said.

The Oklahoma Department of Human Services took the children into protective custody.

According to Oklahoma court records, a man bearing Lewallen’s name pleaded no contest in Tulsa County in August to possessing materials to make amphetamine. He received probation, which includes the condition that he not use alcohol or drugs.

Simpson told The Times he did not know whether Lewallen was on probation and couldn’t comment on a possible violation.

Court records also hinted at a tough life, saying Lewallen dropped out of school after junior high, was living on disability, had five children and had just $69 in cash, plus a bank account too dry to hire an attorney in the amphetamine material case.

Simpson told The Times that he didn’t know whether those were the same children or, if so, where Lewallen’s other two children might be.

Simpson said the children’s mother, who was not identified, came home from work while police were at the house. She was not arrested for child neglect since Lewallen was the one home with the children, Simpson said.

According to court records filed in June, Lewallen identified his wife as Erin and wrote that she didn’t make any money. It’s unclear whether she was the same woman living at the home.

Neighbors told KJRH-2 that the couple had moved into the home two weeks ago.

[For the Record, 9:45 a.m. Nov. 13: An earlier version of this post said that Lewallen’s court records came from an OxyContin case. Those records came from a case in which Lewallen was convicted of possessing materials to make amphetamines.]