The Associated Press

FAIRFIELD, Calif. (AP) " Police said Monday they had removed 10 children from a squalid California home and charged their father with torture and their mother with neglect after an investigation revealed a lengthy period of severe physical and emotional abuse.

The children range from 4 months to 12 years old, said Fairfield police Lt. Greg Hurlbut.

The mother, Ina Rogers, told reporters that she called authorities in March after her 12-year-old son didn't come home.

She said the "squalor" officers saw while investigating came from her tearing her house apart as she searched for her child.

"I was afraid I could not find him," she told KGO-TV. "Once that fear sets in you don't know what to do."

The investigation began March 31 when police responded to the missing juvenile report in Fairfield, 46 miles (74 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.

The officers found the boy and returned him to the family home, where they said they found nine other children living in "squalor and unsafe conditions."

The father, Jonathan Allen, 29, faces felony charges of torture and child abuse and the 30-year-old Rogers faces child neglect charges. She was arrested March 31 and released after posting $10,000 bail.

Allen was arrested Friday after specialists conducted interviews with the children, Hurlbut said. He's being held in the Solano County Jail in lieu of $1.5 million bail.

Court records do not indicate whether the parents have lawyers.

In a separate case, prosecutors in Riverside County, have filed eight new charges against a father accused of shackling and starving some of his 13 children, alleging that he lied on government forms about their schooling.

David Turpin and his wife Louise previously pleaded not guilty to torture, child abuse and other charges in a case that has drawn international attention since the couple's 17-year-old daughter escaped the family's Perris, California, home in January and called 911.