An eastern Ohio couple pleaded guilty to punishing their three children by forcing them into plastic storage boxes sealed with duct tape and only a square cut in the top for air.

A prosecutor said the children, ages 5, 6 and 8, were crammed into the boxes as punishment June 16 at the family home in Steubenville while the parents went to the grocery store and left two uncles at home with them. A friend of the family arrived at the house, got the children out of the boxes and contacted police.