Father charged with starving, neglecting his toddlers
PRINCETON, Minn. — When neighbors saw men in hazmat suits entering a home on their street about 50 miles northwest of Minneapolis, their first thought was "meth lab."
The truth was worse.
On Monday, Michael Gunderson, 32, was charged with neglecting his starving children in filth-strewn house. He remained without bond in Sherburne County jail Wednesday.
"We didn't have any idea what was going on," said Dan Ciskovsky, who lives across the street.
Gunderson's wife discovered her 2- and 3-year-old children in a house that reeked of dog urine and feces. The children's mother told authorities she left the children in her husband's care in early January after she lost her job and took another in Utah.
The woman said she came home last week to find the children living in filth, alone in a crib, thin and dehydrated, according to the criminal complaint.
One child appeared to be trying to eat feces, the criminal complaint said. One child was too weak to walk.
The children's mother drove them to a nearby hospital where doctors found sores on their skin and diagnosed the children as severely malnourished and subject to starvation. They apparently had not been fed.
The children's rib cages were visible through their skin, the complaint said. They were given intravenous fluids and admitted to the hospital.
Neighbors living across the street weren't even aware the couple had children.
"Never seen the kids and never met the people, so I had no idea any of this was going on," Jodi Ciskovsky said. The couple didn't mix with the other neighbors and wouldn't even return her wave as they drove by.
Her husband, Dan Ciskovsky, said the couple stood out in the neighborhood of tidy yards.
"Their yard was always a mess, and nobody ever plowed snow. They would drive through the snowbanks to get to the house," he said.
Acting on a search warrant, investigators found a pound of marijuana in the house, much of it in plastic bags, and what appeared to be dried mushrooms.
Gunderson told authorities he would leave his toddlers alone for 12-hour stretches when he went to work, because "he had no one to care for them," the complaint said.
Neighbors who gathered in a nearby driveway expressed both sadness and regret.
"We just didn't know there were two children in there," Verna Jenson said. "We could have done something."