Parents in Lebanon County charged with homicide and child endangerment

A doctor determined the cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head and starvation.

• Alanna Elder/WITF
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  Alanna Elder was a Report for America corps member who covered Latinos in central Pennsylvania and the 2020 election.

(Annville) — An Annville couple is facing charges for allegedly neglecting, abusing, and killing a 12-year-old child in their care. The Lebanon County District Attorney announced Scott Schollenberger, 42, and Kimberly Maurer, 37, are in custody and being held without bail.

The arrest comes more than three months after police found Maxwell Schollenberger’s body in his bedroom on May 26th. According to court documents provided by the Lebanon County District Attorney’s office, the only furniture in the room, a bed, was covered in fecal matter. The room had no artificial lighting, the windows were blocked off, and the door bore hooks allowing it to lock from the outside.

A doctor determined the cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head and starvation.

Scott Schollenberger, the child’s biological father, and fiancé Maurer, who had also been responsible for Max Schollenberger since he was two, are facing charges of criminal homicide, child endangerment, and conspiracy to commit those crimes.

County detectives say that Max Schollenberger had never been enrolled in school and had not visited a doctor in years.

The complaint says other children who lived in the house were attending school and receiving medical care. They along with family friends and relatives told detectives they rarely saw the child.

Preliminary hearings for the couple are scheduled for later this month.