Truesee's Daily Wonder

 

AP Phoito/Chekevdia Family

Richard Chekevdia in 2007 . His mother pleaded guilty on Monday to keeping her son locked inside her mother's house, sometimes in a small crawl space, for two years to hide the boy from his dad.

A desperate mom confessed to locking up her young son like an animal - sometimes stashing him in a tiny crawl space - for two years to hide the boy from his father.

Shannon Wilfong, 32, will pay $1,500 and serve a month in jail for keeping her boy, Richard Chekevdia, now 9, imprisoned in her mother's home near Royalton, Ill., to keep custody of him.

Wilfong and her mother, Diane Dobbs, blacked out the house's windows and cut the boy off from outside world, forcing him to miss school and doctor's appointments, starting in 2007, according to court testimony.

The women only let Richard out at night, and when visitors came, they forced him into a crawl space behind a wall, testimony revealed.

During the case, Wilfong and Dobbs insisted that they were protecting the boy from his abusive father, Wilfong's ex-boyfriend, Michael Chekevdia, a former cop and Illinois National Guard lieutenant colonel

Chekevdia and state welfare officials said he never harmed the boy. Chekevdia was given custody of Richard last year.

Investigators rescued the boy after raiding the home on a tip in September 2009.

Shannon Wilfong, Richard Chekevdia's mother. (Steve Jahnke/AP)

Wilfong pleaded guilty Monday to five misdemeanors, including obstructing a peace officer. She'll also spend two years on probation.

Dobbs also pleaded guilty to obstructing a peace officer and was fined $1,000.

She said her daughter came clean in order to end the trial and pursue visitation rights.

"She wants to start getting a life with her son," Dobbs told the Carbondale Southern Illinoisan newspaper. "We just want Shannon and \[Richard\] reunited."