Mother of 11 Children Found in "Deplorable" Home Sentenced to 16 Years Probation

Burke County, GA -- They lived in a world apart from the real world, completely shut off from the outside. That's what witness after witness said Friday, about the 11 children of Christine and Jeremy Long....the stories the children told, they said, were that neighbors were evil and would light them on fire, and school was a place of communism.

Foster parents described that night exactly one year ago, when they went to pick up the children…

Foster mother: “The smell. It smelled like animals and death.”

Multiple foster parents told the court that the children in their care did not know how to use the bathroom or bathe. Some said they found the children using the toilet to wash their face and hair. Another said they walked in to find one child drinking from the toilet.

The house where they were taken from, witnesses said, had no running water or electricity, minimal food-including some jam and Crystal Light. Outside the house were feces and urine from where the family used the bathroom.

The judge heard from a doctor who said she found little to no records of medical visits for the children and no proof they'd ever been to a dentist.

Their clothing was tattered, she testified, some had no shoes. Most had never worn underwear.

Teachers said that the older children had elementary reading skills, at best. The younger ones, they said, were completely uneducated.

One foster mother testified the 8-year-old boy in her care didn't know people ate, on a daily basis: "And I asked him if he wanted a snack. I wanted to feed him, feed him, feed him. And he said, and he chewed his gun, and he said, 'I think I can make it until then,' and I said, 'you don't have to make it until then, you can eat in this house anytime you want to...'"

It was during that part of her testimony, that the judge interrupted her, and walked out.

One prosecutor, describing the lack of one child's emotions, broke down.

But, the defense came back to argue that their client was a prisoner, along with her 11 children, in that deplorable home, to her husband, Jeremy Long.

They say, in the last year, she's been able to get her first job, keep a clean house, and now lives with her 18-year-old daughter, Miranda.

Long’s pastor says she is a different woman, today, than this day last year, when he first met her in the emergency room, and told her she would have to give up her children.

The judge sentenced Christine Long to 16 years probation, but she will have to report to the Burke County Jail to serve two weekends a month, for the next two years.

An attorney for Ms. Long says he is grateful for the judge's decision and thinks it is fair.

Husband, and father, Jeremy Long is currently serving a 3-year sentence for this case.