Man locks family in trash trailer

Lavonia: When police finally searched the squat white mobile home where they say a man held his family captive for three years, the place was so filthy and bug-infested that one officer had to wear a gas mask and another refused to enter.

Thousands of roaches and other bugs crawled in and out of drawers, cupboards and furniture. Spoiled food littered the place, and a long-ignored plumbing problem left the floors rotten and mattresses moldy.

Investigators allege it was in this three-bedroom trailer in northeastern Georgia where Raymond Daniel Thurmond forced his wife and four children to live, allowing them to leave only once in three years. Even then, it was only fleeting: A two-hour Easter visit to his wife's parents' place in North Carolina.

"It was pretty much a virtual prison," Lavonia police officer Missy Collins said Wednesday.

"He controlled what they ate, what they did. He controlled pretty much everything."

Thurmond now awaits a bond hearing on charges of rape, child abuse and false imprisonment. He has asked for an attorney but one hadn't been assigned as of Wednesday afternoon.

The family moved to the mobile home park in August 2005, their place blending in among row after row of white trailers. He took a job at a nearby poultry plant.

Polite and quiet

Neighbours described him as polite and quiet, although the park manager said the family was almost evicted because of late rent.

He had no police record, and at one point enrolled his eldest child in first grade.

Behind closed doors, however, Thurmond ruled the family with an iron fist. Sometimes, he'd fly into a rage and hit his children - ages 14, 13, 12 and 9 - with a steel-toed boot, Collins said. Other times, the children told Collins they would hear their father attacking and raping their mother in a bedroom.