Police believe a Kansas City man severely beat and tortured his 7-year-old son to death before feeding him to pigs.

Police responded to the home of Michael A. Jones, 44, Wednesday morning after someone reported he was attacking his wife and firing a gun at her, and during the course of the investigation authorities received a tip about a missing 7-year-old who lived at the home, KCTV 5 reports.

Babysitters who cared for the family’s eight children, who ranged in age from 1 to 11 years old, told the news site Michael Jones and his 29-year-old wife Heather Jones lived in filth, and a tipster alleged “a 7-year-old boy had been missing for an extended period of time and was possibly dead,” according to a police news release cited by NBC News.

On Thursday, police served a warrant on the family’s property and found human remains near a barn which they believe is evidence the child was fed to pigs after being beaten to death, though the remains have not yet been positively identified, KCTV and Fox 8 report.

“For all those girls to have to witness what their brother went through and to have to carry the burden that something happened to their brother is horrible,” one of two babysitters who did not want to be identified told KCTV.

The babysitters questioned the timing of the family’s recent addition of pigs to the barn this fall.

“She went and got pigs in September,” a babysitter said.

Jones stands charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon for the alleged attack on his wife last week, as well as “torturing or cruelly beating” his 7-year-old son, who is not the biological child of Heather Jones, some time between May 1 and Sept. 28, NBC News reports.

Jones is allegedly affiliated with a Topeka Bail bond company. He’s expected to appear in Wyandotte County District Court today. A judge set his bond at $10 million, the highest Wyandottle County District Attorney Jerome A. Gorman said he’s witnessed in his 34 years with the district attorney’s office.

“Judge Alvey granted bond based upon a number of flight factors and safety factors,” Gorman told KCTV.

The anonymous babysitters seemed relieved that authorities have intervened in the family’s affairs.

“Their house was horrible,” one of the women said. “Their house was just filthy. The kids lived in filth. Trash everywhere. Dried food all over the house.”

Heather Jones’ brother, Michael Williams, told NBC News the couple had been together for 9 yearsm and he’s heard stories of mental and physical abuse in the household.

“There are bullet holes in the walls of that house,” he said. “So I’m sure you can understand what terror may have been going through that household daily.”

The family’s former babysitters told KCTV several people reported the Jones’ to the Kansas Department of Children and Families, and that the seven other children in the home are now in protective custody.