By David DeKok

HARRISBURG Pa. (Reuters) - A mother, alerted by a foul odor, found out her son died four days earlier in their Pennsylvania home, and on Monday an autopsy was under way and the boy's father remained jailed in the case.

The 8-year-old boy, Jarrod Tutko, Jr., was among five children in the family who suffer from medical or developmental problems, according to the Harrisburg Patriot-News website.

He was being cared for by his father in an upper bedroom of the Harrisburg home while his mother, Kimberly Tutko, tended to his 10-year-old sister, who is comatose, on another floor, according to the Patriot-News website.

The mother had not seen the boy, who was prone to smear feces on himself, in four years out of fear she would carry an infection back to his sister, the news site reported.

Dauphin County Assistant District Attorney Fran Chardo declined to confirm the details of the news report.

The boy's mother called police on Friday night after she asked her husband about a stench coming from an upper floor of their rented half of a two-family home.

He told her their son was dead, and then brought the decomposing body from the third-floor bedroom, police said.

An autopsy on the boy's body was being conducted on Monday, Chardo said.

The father, Jarrod Nicholas Tutko, 38, was being held on $500,000 bail on charges of child endangerment, concealing the death of a child and abuse of a corpse.

The couple’s other five children were placed in the custody of Dauphin County child welfare authorities.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Jim Loney)