Cook County prosecutors will seek a higher bail for a Berwyn woman who was charged with a series of crimes after her 14-year-old son died last week and his siblings were found living in squalor in a house that was overrun with about 200 animals, many of them diseased.
Lydia Price, 49, was released from jail late Monday after her family put up a $10,000 bond – 10 percent of the $100,000 bail that was set last week.
Price appeared in theMaywood courthouse for a two-minute hearing at which Judge Gilbert Grossi continued her case until Oct. 7. At that time, the state will ask for a bail increase, but prosecutors did not say how much they will seek.
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Price is charged with criminal neglect of a disabled child, child endangerment and animal hoarding.
Price, wearing a blue long-sleeve shirt and black jeans, hung her head and appeared to tear up occasionally before and during the hearing, which was delayed for several minutes because her attorney arrived late. Price, who was accompanied to court by a friend, would not comment outside the courtroom. She rode off from the courthouse in the back seat of her friend’s 4-door silver Dodge.
Price’s attorney, Sam J. Haddad, said that Price currently is living with a relative in south suburban Justice.
“I just met her yesterday,” Haddad said. “She is very confused. I spend a lot of time calming her down.”
Haddad would not comment on Price’s case or say how his client would plea.
Police said they were called to the family’s home on the 2800 block of South Lombard Street last week after Price’s 14-year-old son stopped breathing. The boy, Matthew Degner, could not be resuscitated and was pronounced dead shortly later. An autopsy pointed to bronchopneumonia as the cause.
Officers said the mentally disabled boy and his four siblings, ranging from 12 to 18, never went to school and lived with nearly 200 animals, many deceased and malnourished, in a feces-filled home infested with spiders and rats. The home had no plumbing.
The children, all of whom had flu-like symptoms, are together in state protective custody, authorities said.
Berwyn Police Chief James Ritz said he’ll push to have the home condemned and demolished.