Five Butler County Children Services employees were placed on administrative leave after a 12-year-old girl was found locked in a Middletown basement allegedly by her parents. Three of those employees have since returned to work.

Butler County Children Services placed the employees on paid administrative leave within days after the girl and the other children were removed from the Philadelphia Avenue residence of Shawn and Joanna Blackston on July 3, according to county officials.

Centers said Friday there is nothing so far in the investigation to indicate someone from the agency saw something wrong and did nothing.

“We are trying to determine if maybe there were signs we should have picked up on,” Centers said.

Those employees are Alicia Green and Serina Knight, caseworkers; Tricia Kelly, supervisor, Mike Brock, supervisor and Julie Gilbert, intake director, said Jeff Centers, children services director.

Both the county children services board and the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services are investigating to determine if the department’s rules and policies were followed in the ongoing investigation of the Blackston case.

Brock and Green were placed on leave July 9. Knight and Kelly on July 11 and Gilbert on July 12. Green, Knight and Kelly returned to work on July 16 and there was no disciplinary action taken.

Centers said it is standard procedure for employees to be placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation in these types of cases.

Middletown police said an anonymous complaint of abuse led Butler County Children Services this month to investigate Shawn Blackston, 40, and Joanna Blackston, 36.

After children services staff members saw the “deplorable living conditions,” Middletown police were notified and the children were removed from the home that day.

The six children who lived in the Philadelphia home — ages 15, 14, 12, 9, 3 and 2 — are in foster care.

Charges of kidnapping and felony child endangering were filed against Shawn and Joanna Blackston on July 6 when they were found and arrested in a Sharonville motel.

“It is not like we are accusing anyone of wrong doing, but we want a chance to investigate and review the situation,” Centers said. He added situations such as the Blackston case can also be stressful to employee who may need sometime to work through it.

The girl, a sixth-grader in the Middletown City Schools District, had been allegedly locked in the basement since June 18, about a month after her last day of school. There were several locks on the outside of the door that led to the basement, Middletown police Lieutenant Scott Reeve said.

There was only a mattress in the unfinished basement, and the glass block windows were covered by sheets or wood, eliminating light from coming inside according to police. One light bulb hung from the ceiling.

There was no bathroom in the basement, so the girl was let out of the basement when she needed to use the restroom, Reeve said.

The other children had air conditioners in their second-floor windows and video game systems in their bedrooms. When interviewed, the father and stepmother said locking the 12-year-old in the basement was a form of punishment and a way of protecting the other children, according to detectives handling the case.

The girl was malnourished and dirty when found by officers, Reeve said. She had scars on her back, arms and legs from what she said was previous abuse. She said her stepmother put duct tape over her eyes and mouth and bound her wrists behind her back.

Attorney Randy Turner, guardian ad litem for a 15-year-old sister, said there were a number of red flags that something was wrong at the Blackston home. He said his ward was punished once by being made to watch the other children open Christmas presents when she had not been given any, and she was also punished by being placed in the basement.

The 15-year-old had faced a domestic violence charge in a separate incident and was found delinquent, the juvenile-court equivalent to being found guilty. When the juvenile court ruled the girl could not go home, Turner said she was unusually elated.

In February, Turner asked the court to order Butler County Children Services to investigate the home. He said the agency didn’t find anything wrong with the home.

Joanna Blackston and Shawn Blackston’s cases have been bound over to a Butler County grand jury for consideration. Joanna Blackson is out of jail on bond. Shawn Blackston, whose bail is also $25,000, remains in the Butler County Jail.