Newly released details from Sherburne County authorities paint an increasingly bleak picture of the conditions that two starving toddlers endured for many weeks, sometimes while alone for long stretches, in their filthy home south of Princeton.
In a court petition seeking to place the brothers under protective custody, county Health and Human Services officials revealed that the 3-year-old weighed just short of 22 pounds and his brother — who turned 2 years old Friday — less than 18½ pounds after being brought on March 13 first to a Princeton hospital before their swift transfer to University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital in Minneapolis.
The mother, who had been working in Utah since early January, had returned that day to find them home alone and sharing a crib.
The petition, filed last week, said the boys' weights were "significantly below the growth curve and consistent with severe malnutrition," according to Dr. Nancy Harper, a pediatrician at the university hospital who specializes in child abuse prevention.
The petition said Michael S. Gunderson would routinely lock his sons in a bedroom for more than 12 hours at a time while he went to work 35 miles away in Maple Grove.
During one stretch, the petition continued, the father left the boys alone in the Baldwin Township home, which smelled of urine and dog feces, for "two to three days while he left the state to attend a funeral in Wisconsin."
Gunderson, 32, was charged last week with felony child neglect and felony drug possession. The criminal complaint told just a portion of what conditions were like in the home. Gunderson remains jailed ahead of a hearing Wednesday.
Gunderson told county officials that it was his practice to give the boys bananas and milk, change their diapers and head to work. Upon his return, the petition read, he would feed them soup "if enough electricity was available to cook it."
