West Rockhill Township Couple Sentenced to State Prison After Seven Children Were Found Starved Behind a Padlocked Refrigerator

The trailer on Roseann Lane did not look like a crime scene from the road. Green Top Mobile Home Park sits in West Rockhill Township like a hundred other parks in upper Bucks County: tight lots, aging units, neighbors who mind their own business. Inside unit 655, Shane Robertson, 48, and Crystal Robertson, 38, kept seven children behind a bicycle lock on the refrigerator while a four-foot tegu lizard named Boudin ate salmon on camera. Common Pleas Judge Charissa J. Liller sent both parents to a state prison for 8 to 16 years on August 20, 2024, after they pleaded guilty to seven felony counts of endangering the welfare of children and six summary counts of animal neglect. The AEGIS Alliance is staying with the file because the case is not only about filth. It is about a household that fed pets, filmed pets, and treated children as a drain on the same pantry.

Liller did not hedge. She told the couple they were «two of the worst parents I’ve ever seen in my life» and that they had treated animals better than their own kids. «It is appalling that you would live in these conditions with your seven children,» she said in court. «You treated your animals better than you treated your children. You kept them caged up like animals, but you weren’t treating them as good.» Both parents must complete mental-health evaluations and drug-and-alcohol treatment inside the prison system. They are barred from contacting the children until each child turns 18, and then only with a court-appointed therapist’s approval. They are also forbidden from owning animals while they remain under supervision.

Two children scavenging a neighbor’s abandoned trailer

The case did not start with a wellness check or a school nurse. It started in April 2023 when Pennridge Regional Police took a call about two children pulling items out of an abandoned trailer. One child was barefoot. The other wore dirty clothes that did not fit. They told officers they had gone in looking for a blanket for the family’s rats because there was no money at home. Detectives later identified Pennridge investigator Richard Dean as one of the officers who refused to accept the first story the parents offered.

When officers reached the three-bedroom trailer, they found floors that were rotting through, holes punched in walls and doors, piles of soiled clothing, and animal feces on fabric and flooring. There were no cleaning products. The bathroom had no soap and no toothpaste. The refrigerator was sealed with a bicycle lock. Crystal Robertson carried the key in her purse. Authorities believe the family of nine moved in after Crystal’s father died in 2020 and left the unit behind. The Robertsons first told police they had three children. They had seven — six girls and one boy, ages 4 to 16.

Hospital staff documented what the trailer had already shown. Six of the seven children were clinically malnourished. Two tested positive for COVID-19. Several had poor vision. One girl had maggots in her hair. Every child had severe dental disease. Two needed oral surgery to pull five teeth each. One had 13 visible cavities and an abscess dangerous enough to put a child in a hospital chair. Prosecutors said Crystal Robertson referred to the children as «garbage disposals» in messages that complained they were «stealing food.» The children had no formal schooling. Some did not know their own birthdays. They were afraid of being in public.

The lizard had a following. The children did not have lunch.

The same trailer held roughly two dozen animals: two dogs, two turtles, two rabbits, snakes, toads, a four-foot tegu lizard, and about two dozen rats. Prosecutors said the only food worth mentioning in the home was for those animals. Deputy District Attorney Brittney M. Kern played Crystal Robertson’s TikTok clips in court. Boudin, the tegu, had more than 1,000 followers. The videos showed Crystal dressing the reptile in costumes, taking it to see the Easter bunny, hand-feeding it salmon, and brushing its teeth. Kern’s line to the judge was short: «They chose themselves, and they chose their animals.»

That contrast is the part of the file that still lands hardest. A lock on a refrigerator is not an accident of poverty. Poverty does not buy salmon for a lizard and then leave seven children without toothpaste. Poverty does not build a social-media brand around a pet while children scavenge blankets from a vacant trailer. The Robertsons pleaded guilty months before sentencing — Crystal in May 2024, Shane on June 10, 2024 — which meant Liller was not guessing about the facts. She was sentencing a record the parents had already admitted.

Bucks County Children and Youth placed the seven children with the agency and later with relatives. The animals went to the Bucks County SPCA. On August 28, 2024, Sellersville officials recognized three officers for pulling the children out of the trailer, a ceremony 6abc covered as a rare public thank-you in a case that had been grim from the first call. Prosecutors have said the children are healthier, have made friends, and are in school. Kern also warned that «the psychological effects will last a lifetime.»

What the sentence does and does not repair

Eight to sixteen years is a long state term for endangerment counts that never alleged a beating in open court. It is also a floor, not a cure. The no-contact order lasts until each child is an adult. Even then, a therapist has to sign off. That structure treats the parents as an ongoing risk, not as people who made a one-time mess. It also treats the animals as part of the same pattern. The court did not only punish neglect of children. It banned future possession of pets during supervision because the record showed the couple knew how to care for a living thing when they wanted the camera on.

Cases like this rarely arrive through a single heroic tip. They arrive because a neighbor notices two hungry kids in an empty trailer, or because an officer decides the first answer is not good enough. The AEGIS Alliance has watched the same pattern in other child-safety files, including the Wayne County drowning case that sent an 11-year-old to juvenile detention after another child died in standing water that adults should have controlled. Our #OpChildSafety reporting keeps those outcomes in one place so a sentence in Bucks County is not treated as an isolated embarrassment.

West Rockhill is not a hidden corner of Pennsylvania. It sits along routes that carry commuters toward Philadelphia and the Lehigh Valley. Green Top Mobile Home Park is the kind of address that local government inspects when a complaint is loud enough and ignores when it is not. The Robertsons lived there long enough for seven children to miss years of school, dentistry, and daylight. No inspector, no teacher, and no relative stopped the lock on the fridge before two kids went looking for a rat blanket. That is the policy failure sitting underneath the mugshots.

Readers who want more court outcomes can start in our Crime News desk and the broader U.S. News file. Related reporting on how institutions fail children also includes the Alabama tennis coach sentenced after using a program for underprivileged kids as cover. The AEGIS Alliance will keep the names on the page because the children already spent years without them being spoken in a courtroom.

If this account is difficult to read, talk with someone you trust or a professional resource in your area.