FULTON - A 27-year-old man was charged Tuesday with strangling his 11-year-old stepsister, who police say was starved by her parents and lived mostly in a locked room inside a house filled with garbage and more than 100 cats.

Alan Jones is accused of using a rope to strangle Erin Maxwell while he was home alone with her on Aug. 29. The girl was found unconscious in her bedroom with a green cord around her neck, one end caught on a nail in a window frame. She died the next day.

Jones was indicted on a second-degree murder charge and was being held in the Oswego County Jail.

Lindsey Maxwell, 35, the girl's father, and Lynn Maxwell, 53, her stepmother, were each charged with six counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

At a news conference two weeks ago with their lawyer, the Maxwells and Jones proclaimed their innocence, suggesting Erin accidentally hanged herself while acting out a scene from her favorite movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.”

Defense attorney Salvatore Lanza said Tuesday his clients continue to maintain their innocence.

“It's their contention that this unfortunate incident is a horribly tragic accident,” Lanza said.

State Police Capt. Mark Lincoln said authorities were suspicious of the relatives from the beginning because their accounts and explanations didn't match what investigators were seeing at the scene.

“Erin was being raised in a home with over 100 cats, as well as caged poultry. The home reeked of animal urine. There was animal feces over 18 inches deep in one of the rooms,” Lincoln said.

Investigators found that Erin was given “minimal amounts of food” and routinely locked every night at 5:30 p.m. in a small bedroom where she remained overnight.

Each endangering charge against the Maxwells deals with a different form of conduct over different times, said District Attorney Donald Dodd.

Despite her living conditions, Erin was a “bright, warm and friendly 11-year-old,” Lincoln said. She stood 4 1/2 feet tall but weighed only 65 pounds, he said.

Lincoln said the three defendants showed no reaction or emotion when they were arrested at 8 a.m. at their new home in Fulton. Jones, who was ordered held on $100,000 bail at his arraignment, was due back in county court Wednesday.

Second-degree murder carries a maximum penalty of 25 years to life in prison. The endangering charges are misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail.

It took authorities more than a month to make an arrest in the case - a delay that caused a public outcry. Dodd said authorities needed “accuracy and reliability of the facts” before they could bring charges. State police don't expect to charge anyone else, Lincoln said. All three defendants have provided DNA samples.

Erin's death sparked weekly vigils and protests from area residents who said the county's Social Services Department knew about the home's deplorable conditions but did too little to help the girl.

After Maxwell's death, county social service officials reviewed the handling of her case by social workers. A report found that the Maxwell family had been investigated three times - in July 2003, November 2004 and March 2006.

Each of those times, social workers reported conditions in the home were marginal but that the Maxwells complied with their directives to remove some of the animals and clean the house. Social workers concluded each time that Erin was in no danger and they had no lawful reason to remove her from the home.