MONESSEN MAN AND GIRLFRIEND ACCUSED OF CHILD ABUSE

A Monessen man and his girlfriend are accused of abusing a five-year-old boy.  Charles Smitley and Colleen Cassidy were taken into custody yesterday.  State police first contacted Monessen authorities about the child when his grandfather took him to the hospital in Uniontown with bruises on his legs and backside.  The boy reportedly told investigators his father, Smitley, and Cassidy spanked him with a paddle every day.  They were not feeding him properly and locked him in a basement bathroom to sleep without any padding or blankets as well, according to authorities.  Police say the boy also told them he had been forced to eat his own excrement.  Both the five-year-old and Cassidy’s eleven-year-old son have been removed from their custody.  Smitley and Cassidy and being held in the Westmoreland County Prison.