A Paulding County teenager says his parents locked him away in his room for four years, until he was 18. Mitch Comer says his parents finally let him out on his 18^th birthday, but put him on a bus in Mississippi to California. The boy was given $200, a list of homeless shelters, and was told him to never come back.

Mitch was 5-foot-3 and weighed 97 pounds when he was found last week by a Los Angeles security officer. He said the 18-year-old looked too frail and young to be alone. The security guard thought Mitch was 12 or 13 years old.

Now Mitch’s parents -- Paul and Sheila Marie Comer – are in jail in Paulding County. They face six counts of child cruelty, plus one count of false imprisonment. The state is now taking care of their other children, two girls ages 11 and 13. Mitch’s sisters say they hadn’t seen their brother in two years.

“The wheels of justice are going to grind hard, based on the facts,” said Paulding County District Attorney Dick Donovan.

It is not known if the teenager had any physical or developmental disabilities. Comer told investigators he didn’t know why he was put on a bus.

"He's a small, small young man. I call him my young man. He's very polite, very timid, but surprising to me he let us in," investigator Monica Moore told Channel 2 Action News; she escorted Comer from L.A. back to Dallas, Ga.

The district attorney’s office found a family willing to care for him. The state child care agency can’t help him because he’s over 18, and Adult Protective Services can't step in because he hasn't been declared disabled.

If Comer’s claims are true, that he spent 1,460 days locked away in his room, Donovan says he will bring charges for each day of captivity. The Paulding County Sherriff’s office says they will peruse more charges, but did not elaborate.

This story may sound bizarre to you. But it does not surprise the victim’s grandmother.

“It is not shocking to me,” Diane Powell told the AJC in a phone interview Thursday. “I figured this was what was going on, but I didn’t know how to stop it.”

Powell is Sheila Comer’s mother. She burst into tears when told of her grandson’s story.

“They mistreated him something terrible,”she said between tears. “I got on her case about it and she disappeared from my life.”

Powell says she hasn’t spoke to her daughter in more than 10 years. She thought the Comers were living in Ohio. They have bounced between almost two dozen addresses in the last 20 years before landing in an upscale home in Dallas, Ga. They had also spent time in California and Arizona, Powell said.

Powell lives in Iowa and wants to bring her grandchildren home. He hasn’t seen Mitch since he was a toddler and has never met her granddaughters.

The state Division of Family and Child Services couldn’t confirm or deny whether the agency has been called to the Comer’s home in recent years. A spokesman from Paulding County Public Schools could also not confirm whether the children have ever been enrolled in the school system.

The Comers next door neighbors had no idea there was a boy trapped inside. Dion Walker and Mea Smith say in the two years they lived on Vivid Lane, their kids had played with the Comers’ daughters many times.

“We had never seen this child,” Smith said. “Never. Never even signs of him at all.”

“Maybe, when the young girls would stare at us, were they trying to say something?” Walker said. “Should we have noticed?”