ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY, Va. – Two people have been convicted of child sexual abuse in Rockbridge County.
Robert Clark was sentenced to 65 years and Samantha Simmons to 43 years in prison in a case that Chief Deputy Commonwealth Attorney Jared Moon calls the most disturbing sex crime that he's ever encountered as a prosecutor.
The case was also part of an investigation into the Rockbridge County Social Services Department that was concluded in April.
The children involved in this case were a 3-year-old girl and an 8-year-old girl.
They were removed from the two trailer homes the family was living in back in September 2015, but the report from that grand jury investigation into the social services department shows that, without the input of two employees there, those children might never have been rescued.
The report shows that social services workers went to the trailers after deputies investigated the situation in September 2015.
Moon, speaking on the phone Wednesday, described what they found.
"Both of them were just covered in roaches and other bugs. Thousands, if not millions, of bugs. Trash all over the house. The insects were inside the refrigerator, running through food, food that the children ate," said Moon.
The grand jury report shows the social worker who saw those conditions requested that the children be removed immediately, but her then-supervisor, who has since resigned, said, "They're used to living that way, so what's the big deal."
That social worker then obtained a protective order and she and another employee found a placement for the children themselves without the supervisor's approval, according to the report.
WSLS 10 is not revealing the names of any social service employees in that report because none of them were charged with a crime.
Moon said both of the girls who suffered abuse are now with a loving foster family that plans to officially adopt them.