Earlier this week, Reddit user Manofmail posted a photo he took while driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The image, though blurry, depicts a young girl inside a cage with a dog in the bed of a pickup truck.
While posting about the incident on Reddit, Manofmail also called police multiple times to report the dangerous situation and provide photos. According to a report from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, police were able to track down the truck using information from Manofmail and another motorist. The driver of the truck, 30-year-old Thomas Fishinger, was pulled over near his home in Millvale, Pennsylvania. Fishinger, it turns out, is the 10-year-old girl-in-the-cage’s stepfather. He told police that he and the child’s mother, 29-year-old Abbey Carlson, were on the way home from a relative’s house.
When asked why the girl was in the cage, Fishinger reportedly told police that she had asked to be in there with the dog. According to the Tribune-Review, both Fishinger and Carlson have been charged with endangering the welfare of a child.
(Image courtesy Manofmail)