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29 PALMS – Deputies responding to a 29 Palms home were shocked at what they found when responding to a report of a dogs being left outdoors without water or shade with the ground temperature being around 145 degrees.

Animal Control along with deputies responded to the home in the 5000 block of Halsey Avenue in 29 Palms just before 10:30 a.m. on Monday morning. When they arrived they could see an approximately 7-year-old girl inside the home. Deputies and animal control officers knocked for several minutes, but no one answer. Deputies attempted to contact the parents of the girl but were unable to.

Deputies opened the unlocked door in order to go in and conduct a welfare check on the child. Inside the home, Natalya McCourt, 27 was found sleeping in her room. Walking through the hall, deputies noticed a child’s arm reaching under the door of another bedroom. Inside the bedroom, which was locked from the outside was two boys, ages 6 and 3. The 6-year-old child was autistic. Authorities said that while locked inside the bedroom the boys had no access to water or restrooms.

Natalya McCourt was subsequently arrested, transported and booked into the Morongo Jail for felony child cruelty and felony animal neglect. McCourt was released from jail at around 8:15 p.m. and has no court hearings scheduled at this time.