LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — An extended stay maintenance worker, who helped rescue two young boys found locked in a cage, said he is no hero as he questions security in hotel rooms.
Travis Doss, 31, and Amanda Stamper, 33, shared a one-bedroom, one-bathroom extended-stay apartment with seven children near Flamingo Road and Valley View Boulevard, documents said. Police arrested the couple, who cared for seven children between the ages of 2 and 11, on Sunday, June 11, NewsNation affiliate KLAS first reported.
That day, Metro police found six of the children alone in the unit. Two boys were locked in a cage, police said.
The day before their arrests, Doss reportedly told Stamper he believed one child in the cage, an 11-year-old boy, was deceased, documents said, because he had “kicked him in the head too hard.” Stamper reportedly told police she believed the child “looked dead for the last five days.”
In body camera video KLAS first obtained, maintenance worker Keith Archibald, 43, helps police convince a child behind the room’s locked door to open it for officers.
“Can I give it a shot?” Archibald tells one officer in the video.
Over the course of two minutes, Archibald speaks to a child who is refusing to allow officers to enter.
“These police officers are here to check on you guys,” Archibald tells the child in the video.
That morning, police were called to a store for a woman, later identified as Stamper, who was hiding from her husband, later identified as Doss, because “he threatened to kill her,” documents said. Stamper then alerted police about what they would find in the apartment, police said.
“So, when the little man listened to my voice I said, ‘Look at me. It’s OK. We are all friends here,’” Archibald said.
After about two minutes, the young boy opens the door, allowing Archibald and the officers inside.
“You want me to come in with them?” Archibald tells the child as police follow behind.
What they would find haunts Archibald more than a month later.
He and the officers found the boys padlocked in a dog cage, they said. One of the children kept in the cage had “two black eyes that were swollen shut, multiple marks and bruises all over his body, and he was emaciated,” police said.
Doss is the father of all seven children, prosecutors said. Stamper is the stepmother to six children and has one biological child, a 2-year-old, with Doss, prosecutors said. Stamper is expecting another child.
Stamper had told investigators Doss was “violent towards all the children” except the 2-year-old, police said. Stamper said he hit the children with “belts, extension cords, skillets, his hands and feet,” documents said. “Amanda said all the children are covered with marks from their neck down.”
“He was weak,” Archibald said. “He looked like he was starving, and he was beaten really bad. Bruises everywhere.”
Archibald was able to cut off the padlock and help officers free the two boys, the video showed.
“What made you feel like they would listen to you?” KLAS David Charns asked Archibald.
“It was God with me on that one,” Archibald said. “Something told me to talk to these kids because I’m a father myself.”
Archibald had seen Doss, Stamper and several of the children, before but never spoke with them, he said. He never had a work order in the unit during their stay.
“If they’re not getting the housekeeping, if they’re not requiring it, they want their privacy,” Archibald said.
Archibald left his job in the weeks after the rescue, he said. He was often sent on similar calls that did not involve maintenance, he said.
“When they have issues they have a worker and they call maintenance to go with them like they are security,” he said. “I’m not getting paid for that.”
In June, a 30-year-old man killed his grandmother, a man who was with her and a maintenance worker at an apartment complex in the west valley, police said. Management at the complex allegedly sent two maintenance workers to check the apartment before police arrived, officers said. A second maintenance worker survived after McDonald attacked him with a knife, investigators said.
Archibald will not call himself a hero, but he is certainly receiving thanks.
“I was raised to be a man and raised to do the right thing,” he said.
Stamper was being held without bail due to a probation violation, records showed. Judge Andrew Wong initially set Doss’ bail at $250,000 in June. Doss’ bail was raised to $500,000 following his indictment. A trial for both could begin as early as this fall, a judge said Thursday.
Representatives from Extended Stay America did not respond to a request for comment about the property’s security procedures. A post on its website said room cleanings can be requested every two weeks and fresh linens and towels can be picked up at the property’s office.
The seven children are in the care of the Department of Children and Families. The dogs who also lived in the unit were taken by animal control.
To report child abuse visit: https://dcfs.nv.gov/Tips/CA/ChildAbuse. To reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline, call: 800-799-7233.