http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/police-brothers-in-their-70s-80s-arrested-in-child-sex-abuse-investigation/596258669 Police: Brothers in their 70s, 80s arrested in child sex abuse investigation by: Gary Horcher, DeeDee Sun Updated: Aug 22, 2017 - 2:24 AM

On Aug. 19, Seattle child sex crime detectives say they say the acted on a tip from a relative who arrived to clean out the garage of three elderly brothers and immediately called 911.

At the home detectives collected a staggering amount of child porn. They also found evidence of the sexual exploitation of young girls as well as children's worn clothing and underwear, children’s shoes, toys and movies.

Homeland Security's Internet Child Exploitation team assisted in the search, which involved digging for potential buried evidence under locked sheds and garages.

Seattle police say the brothers, ranging in age from 78 to 82, began molesting their own sister and eventually molested other young relatives for decades.

None of them had ever married, none had their own children or many relationships outside their own siblings.

Police arrested 82-year-old Charles Lee Emery in a Queen Anne nursing home. Eighty-year-old Thomas Edwin Emery and 78-year-old Edwin Harold Emery were arrested at their home.

Neighbor Don Smith saw piles of porn and news clippings about murdered children taken from the home's old crumbling shed, where police say the walls held horrifying secrets for five decades, and it was all closely guarded by the three brothers.

"If you have interaction with typical people it's one thing, but with them it's like 'grrrrrrr!'"

Detectives say Charles, Thomas and Edwin sexually molested young relatives for years, and collected pictures and even children's shoes.

But detectives say it was Charles' "manifestos" about Satanic rituals, kidnapping, raping and killing girls that led them to dig under sheds, searching for evidence of potential murder.

Detectives say one of Charles' writings was found buried and partially burned -- along with a child's hat.

"Their writings express desires to kill children," said Capt. Mike Edwards, who leads SPD's Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force.

The search extended from the home in the Green Lake neighborhood to another home the brothers owned 90 miles away in Shelton.

"It's very clear that these three individuals have an obsession with young female children, they've had this obsession for most if not all of their lives, and they acted on it," said Edwards.

Charging documents indicate SPD detectives questioned Edwin Emery and his relatives about child porn found on his computer in 2013, but no charges were ever filed.

Now detectives are hoping to identify the children in the photos and they hope to find victims who may have been molested decades ago and never came forward. Neighbors react

Neighbors in the quiet Green Lake neighborhood along Northeast 59th St.Street say they always wondered about the dilapidated house and the three guarded, mysterious Emery brothers who lived there since 1962.

"I've never seen a girlfriend, a wife, a woman of any type visit that house," said Don Smith, who lives next door.

Neighbors have been wondering exactly what happened in this home since investigators swarmed the home over the weekend. The new details Seattle police and court documents revealed leave them stunned.

For decades, neighbors didn't think much about the three brothers who've lived there for 55 years.

“I just thought they were harmless weird old guys,” said Julie Vandenberg, who lives directly across the street.

“They're just kind of your average recluses,” said Noel O’Shea, another neighbor.

Then neighbors saw the investigators in HAZMAT suits and police bring out box after box of evidence on Friday and Saturday.

“It was shocking. I didn’t know what to think,” said Smith, who watched investigators work late into the night Friday from his home next door.

“It just makes your skin crawl,” O’Shea said. “It’s just a real black spot on a quiet neighborhood in Greenlake,” he said.

“It’s way worse than I thought. It is sickening, it's really sickening,” Vandenberg said. “Something happened to little children here - it sounds like little girls, and that's horrific.”

Neighbors say many young children live on the block.

“There are a ton of kids,” O’Shea said.

“I think they're cowards because they pick on children. It is it's disgusting to think what they might've done to some mom and dad's little girl, or little girls.”

The neighbors say they wish they would've noticed some sign earlier, about what was going on in the house but they're just glad the three brothers aren't there to victimize kids any longer.

Don Smith said he was surprised the allegations were kept quiet for so long.

"I mean, to be next door to these guys for all these years, if. If they're going out every day and doing something like that, I was like, wow. This is too much"