The Provincial Court of Asturias sentenced Christian Steffen and Melissa Ann Steffen on Monday to two years and ten months in prison for habitual psychological violence and family abandonment. The German-origin parents kept their three children isolated for nearly four years in a home in Fitoria.
The court acquitted the couple of illegal detention. Each parent will serve two years and four months for psychological violence and six months for abandonment. They are also disqualified for three years and four months from exercising parental authority and must compensate each child with 30,000 euros.
The events date back to April 28, 2025, when local police rescued the eight-year-old twins and the ten-year-old boy in the pink house in Oviedo. The children, who lived in diapers and unschooled, showed amazement at seeing the garden and touching grass for the first time.
The sentence, notified today, rejects the parents' claim that the isolation aimed to protect the children from covid. The minors remain in a tutored center of the Principality of Asturias, where they are evolving favorably according to authorities.
