LAS VEGAS — A Henderson, Nevada, couple were arrested after police found a boy with autism locked in a “makeshift jail cell” and their three other children living in a home smeared with feces, according to arrest reports.

Misty Scanlan, 46, and Jeffery Scanlan, 41, were booked into the Henderson Detention Center on Tuesday on one count of felony child abuse and neglect.

It wasn’t clear how long the child had been kept in the cage, but his father told investigators that they had installed the enclosure about six years ago because of (a child’s) behavior, according to police.

One of their other children also has autism, police said.

The Scanlans have each posted a $5,000 bond, according to court records, which note that they had bailed out before a judge finished evaluating the arrest reports.

Officers from the Henderson and Clark County School District police departments showed up to the family home in the 2000 block of Silverton Drive after the four children hadn’t attended classes for several days.

The parents said that flu-like symptoms had kept them at their home, near Wigwam Parkway, west of Valley Verde Drive, according to police.

Upon knocking on the door, officers heard a “child screaming and a gate rattling inside,” police said.

Jeffery Scanlan came to the door about 40 minutes later and allowed police inside.

The 11-year-old boy in the cage was only wearing a diaper, police wrote in an arrest report.

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