Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Midlothian father admits he locked daughters in cage in truck, cops say
Man arrested at gas station, charged with child endangerment

July 4, 2008
Whenever Ricardo Gonzalez went to a job site in his pickup truck, he never let his small children out of his sight. So protective was the 35-year-old south suburban man, he kept his daughters in a makeshift cage inside the truck, officials say.

One of the girls told an investigator for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services that her father locks them up because “he does a very dangerous job,” according to state records reviewed by the Tribune. “My dad tightens both of us with his belt by my leg and my sister was [on] the other side of the cage tight with another belt.”

Gonzalez of Midlothian was arrested Monday after a woman heard one of his children crying from the locked cage at a gas station in Posen, authorities said.

He was charged with misdemeanor child endangerment. A Cook County state’s attorney’s office spokesman said Thursday that prosecutors had not yet determined whether the offense will be upgraded to a felony. He is scheduled to appear July 31 in the Markham Courthouse.

The father has admitted locking up both his daughters in the cage while he worked collecting trash and scrap metal because he had no one to baby-sit for the children, ages 2 and 5, officials said. But police said he also admitted he locked them up to control them so they wouldn’t run away.

Gonzalez’s pickup truck was spotted about 4:30 p.m. Monday at a gas station in the 3000 block of West 147th Street in Posen when a woman standing at a fuel pump heard what she thought was a crying child. Police said Gonzalez was sitting in the driver’s seat at the time with one of his daughters in his lap while the other was locked up in the cage crying.

The children were turned over to DCFS, which was investigating an allegation of abuse of the two children by their father, said agency spokesman Kendall Marlowe, adding that the girls have been placed into foster care.

The agency had prior contact with the family in 2006 when it investigated the children’s mother for neglect, Marlowe said. According to records, the mother was reported to have left one of the daughters home alone outside their residence.

That allegation was “substantiated,” Marlowe said, but DCFS provided the family with “supportive services” instead of placing the children in foster care.

The girls’ mother works long hours as a dental assistant at a nearby medical center, according to Tracy Burns, one of Gonzalez’s neighbors.

The makeshift cage was installed behind the front seat of Gonzalez’s truck, and was made from rope, metal fencing, wires and bungee cords, police said. The father allegedly locked the cage with a padlock.

Gonzalez told a child-welfare investigator he locked the children in a cage inside the truck for protection, adding that the couple can’t afford day care, according to the records. He said he kept them in the cage on and off for the last few weeks, the records indicated.

During the interview with one of his daughters, the child told the investigator, “Please take [us to] my mother who is good with us,” according to the records.

Gonzalez and other family members could not be reached for comment at the home Thursday.