Woman Gets Sentenced For Making Kids Live Amid Filth, Feces

PITTSBURGH, PA — A Pittsburgh-area woman was sentenced to prison, probation and home electronic monitoring after pleading guilty to endangering five children by making them live under deplorable conditions.

Westmoreland County District Attorney Nicole W. Ziccarelli announced that Heidi Beer, 35, of Vandergrift, entered a general guilty plea and was sentenced last week to serve 3 to 23 months of incarceration, followed by three years of probation and six months of home electronic monitoring.

Beer was immediately taken into custody to begin serving her sentence.

Common Pleas Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio sentenced Beer to serve the home electronic monitoring in the same residence and environment the victims were forced to reside in.

Beer was charged with child endangerment by Vandergrift Police in August.

Police encountered the children -- ages 16, 15, 14, 10, 9 -- after being called to respond to an unrelated incident.

The children told officers they had not seen Beer for days and had trouble contacting her.

Vandergrift Police offered to give the children a ride home and smelled a pungent odor emanating from the residence on Emerson Street.

The children took the officer inside the residence which revealed deplorable filthy conditions -- feces and urine on the floor, dirt, no water, no food, holes, leaky pipes, and bunk beds made of plywood without mattresses.

Police contacted a relative who allegedly told officers the children came to her Parks Township home to fill up jugs of water to take back to the house because there was no other access to water.

Officers noticed the children kept their clothing in an abandoned residence next door.

The children told police Beer claimed to be living with a boyfriend in Pittsburgh but had not checked on the children in days.

When officers made contact with Beer, she said she was staying in West Virginia and was aware the house was in deplorable conditions.

Relatives took custody of the children.