The 10-year-old boy was reportedly found wandering barefoot down the street, looking for food and asking police to "please not make him go back".
A 20-year-old was arrested last week in Griffin, Ga., for allegedly choking his 10-year-old stepbrother, a month after his parents were also arrested on child cruelty charges, including starving the young boy.
Spalding County Jail records reviewed by PEOPLE show Ethan Washburn, 20, was arrested last Tuesday and is being held without bond on two felony counts of aggravated assault.
He is the son of Krista and Tyler Schindley, who were arrested last month on charges including attempted murder and first-degree cruelty to children causing “cruel and excessive physical and mental pain,” according to 11Alive.
An arrest warrant for Washburn identified the 10-year-old boy as having autism and that his older brother “often” punched him in the “body, head and face.”
The outlet reported the young boy’s parents, who were arrested on May 12, had “intentionally withheld food from the juvenile for an extended period of time." They were taken into custody after a neighbor found the 10-year-old boy wandering barefoot down the street, looking for food, after police say he escaped from the home.
When officers spoke with the boy, he asked them to “please not make him go back,” according to 11Alive.
The outlet reports the arrest warrant for the parents says the couple “locked the juvenile child inside his bedroom” and left him alone for extended periods of time on multiple occasions, “with no access to lights, food, clothing or adult interaction and/or assistance."
The parents also left the young boy with no "hot or warm running water, outside view, toilet paper, electronic communication, human interaction, adult supervision or access to exit.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported the boy weighed 36 pounds the day the family’s neighbor found him walking alone. That’s roughly half the size of an average 10-year-old boy, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
"It is my true belief that had he not gotten out of the home, this case would be a very different one," Spalding County District Attorney Marie Broder told reporters last month, according to Fox 5.
"As a mother, I can't comprehend it,” she said, the outlet reports. “As a human being, it breaks your heart. We aren't releasing any photos of this child for obvious reasons, but I will tell you, the photos are absolutely horrible, and anybody with a human heart, who looks at them, should be shaken to their core.”
