BOSTON -- The siblings of a 5-year-old Lowell boy found locked in a hot attic told police that "Mommy does this when she gets angry," prosecutors said Friday.

The boy was hospitalized after he was found locked in a dangerously hot attic, nude and covered in his own feces and vomit, police said.

His mother, Kristen Paquette, 27, faces charges of reckless endangerment to a child under 18 and assault and battery on a child in Lowell District Court on Friday. She was held on $10,000.

"I just want to say my daughter is the not the monster she is being portrayed to be," Paquette's father, Alfred Paquette, said.

Paquette defended his daughter after police allegedly found her 5-year-old locked in a sweltering attic. The child was locked in the attic as "punishment," according to police. Prosecutors said it "was not an isolated incident."

"When police went in they found a completely naked 5-year-old boy covered in feces from head to toe. The boy was saying, 'downstairs' and appeared obviously upset by what was going on," prosecutor Dan Harren said.

"My kids have played up there with those kids and they never complained," Paquette's step-mother Tracey Paquette said.

In court, Kristen Paquette hid behind her attorney. Her family called her a single mother of four who is overwhelmed.

"She is a regular mom, who has a child who needs special services, and she'd tried to get help and no one's helped," Alfred Paquette said.

"In speaking with other children from the house, they said, 'Mommy does this when she gets angry.' This is the way the defendant punished the child," Harren said.

Police said that the odor of human feces and urine was overwhelming and the temperature in the Lenox Street attic was estimated to be over 100 degrees.

The woman's children, a 6-year-old boy and a 9-year-old boy, were removed from the home and put into protective custody. A fourth child who was not at home at the time will also be placed in protective custody.

The apartment was condemned by the Department of Public Health.

Lowell is a city about 30 miles north of Boston.