The father of a seven-year-old boy found dead in his family’s washing machine said he came home that night to find the front door of their home was unlocked.

Jermaine Thomas told reporters the front door of the house had been unlocked when he came home, just a few hours before he reported his adopted son Troy Khoeler missing early Thursday morning.

‘It’s just that, I came home, I was fixin’ to walk in the door like right now, I don’t have my keys, but I put my key in the door and then the door opened. Anything else after that, I don’t know,’ Thomas told KHOU 11.

When asked if the door was already unlocked when he returned, Thomas said: ‘Yeah, but I dunno.’

Police in Spring, Texas, received the missing persons call around 5.20 am Thursday, and soon after found Troy’s body inside a top-loading washing machine inside the family’s garage.

Both of the parents were questioned for the entire next day and released without any charges. His mother declined speaking with reporters.

According to authorities, when they arrived at the family’s home early that morning there were ‘signs’ indicating they should search the house in its entirety for the boy.

‘Things that they observed led them to search the house thoroughly at that point. They found a deceased seven-year-old child in the washing machine in the garage,’ Lt Robert Minchew of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said.

Investigators still don’t know how the young boy died or ended up in the washing machine, and are waiting on autopsy results from the medical’s office.

‘Whether he was killed by the washing machine or killed and placed in it, we’re just so far from that. I can’t comment,’ Minchew said.

Authorities said the boy was adopted into the family in 2019.

A spokesperson with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services said ‘CPS does have history with the family.’

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