Child actress Ariel Winter (born Ariel Winter Workman, right), age 14, was abused by her mother, Chrisoula “Chrystal” Workman. Ariel’s older sister Shanelle Workman Gray (age 34, left) was also abused; she was removed from her mother’s care 20 years previously and placed in foster care. The girls’ brother, Jimmy Workman, was not abused. Ariel was homeschooled starting in second grade, including by private tutors and in online classes.

Court papers filed by Gray described “ongoing physical abuse (slapping, hitting, pushing) and emotional abuse (vile name-calling, personal insults about minor and minor’s weight, attempts to ‘sexualize’ minor, deprivation of food, etc.) for an extended period of time.” Ariel’s coworkers observed that Workman would only “allow her daughter to eat egg whites and raw vegetables.”

Ariel was removed from her mother’s care and placed with Gray in late 2012. The guardianship became permanent in 2014. No charges have been filed against Workman.

Date: October 3, 2012
Location: Los Angeles, California

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An 8-year-old boy was starved and chained to a bed for a year by his parents, Christopher Shawn Pope and Trina Pope. The boy’s grandmother, Wanda Zavala, knew about the abuse but did nothing because she believed he “was possessed with evil spirits.” The boy’s 7 siblings (ages 10, 9, 6, 4, 3, 20 months and 8 months; Trina Pope was pregnant with her 9th child) were not similarly abused. The boy had previously attended school, “but his father had withdrawn him because of what the father contended were discipline problems and he was being home-schooled.”

The boy was not released even to use the bathroom, and by the time he was found chained to the bed rail the soiled mattress had been removed and he was sleeping on the floor. He also “had some injuries on him,” according to police. The boy weighed 51 lbs. when he was rescued after child services received a tip in April 1999. The other children were not removed until July when the Popes were finally arrested—the police had tried for three months to speak with the other children, but “the parents would not let them speak with police.” Social services had previously been called to the house in May 1997 when the Popes left their children at home to go see a movie.

Christopher and Trina Pope were found guilty of child endangerment and sentenced to 18 months and one year in prison, respectively. Zavala was charged with a misdemeanor.

Date: April 12, 1999
Location: Pasadena, Texas

Yahweh Lord (born c. 1983), Rainbow Lord (born c. 1985), and Angel Lord (born c. 1988) were abused by their father, John Lamont Davis (who also went by “Rajohn Lord”), their mother Carrie Lee Davis, and Faye Alice Potts, who lived with the Davises. “The boys were schooled at home, but not under any official home-schooling program. Potts taught them English and math.” In spring 1991, 6-year-old Rainbow ate a piece of drywall and became sick, perhaps due to a beating. As the Davises’ extreme religious beliefs were opposed to medical care, they did not seek treatment for Rainbow. After he died, they burned his body.

Yahweh and Angel grew up isolated from the outside world. They were starved, beaten with a “rod of correction”, and sometimes chained to their beds. When they were rescued, they did not know how to eat an apple and they were severely underdeveloped, with “wasted muscles that [made] it difficult for them to walk.” The boys were not allowed to speak unless they were reading from the Bible, were not allowed to use the bathroom, and were only allowed to shower under a cold hose every few months. They were never seen by a doctor.

The abuse came to light in October 2000 when Yahweh called 911. After the boys’ rescue, Yahweh changed his name to Jerry and Angel changed his name to Michael. Jerry was diagnosed with schizophrenia and sadly was murdered in 2003 not far from the group home where he was living.

The Davises and Potts were charged with “two counts each of torture, felony child abuse involving great bodily harm and false imprisonment.” After Rainbow’s remains were discovered, they were also charged with his murder, and John Davis was also charged with raping a “15- or 16-year-old girl in January 1995.” Following these charges, Davis committed suicide in his cell. Carrie Davis pleaded guilty and was sent to a mental institution, and Potts pleaded no contest and was sent to prison.

Date: October 14, 2000
Location: Twentynine Palms, California

Tommy Halbesleben, age 10, was starved by his father, August James Halbesleben, and his stepmother Jeanine Marie Halbesleben, from the summer of 1999—when the Halbeslebens began homeschooling him due to “conflicts with his second grade teacher and school officials”—until February 2000. Jeanine had been convicted in 1999 of misdemeanor injury to a child after she hit Tommy’s older brother and ruptured his eardrum.

The Halbeslebens had attended a parenting class where “they were taught that food limitations could be used as a form of discipline.” When Tommy began misbehaving, they limited his food intake to oatmeal, rice, noodles, and beans. The Halbeslebens claimed not to realize their son was starving, believing he was on a healthy diet. After he was rescued, Tommy gained 6 lbs. in the first 24 hours.

The abuse came to light after an anonymous tip brought officials to the Halbeslebens’ home on a welfare check and declared Tommy in immediate danger. The Halbeslebens were convicted of felony injury to a child on November 3, 2000, and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Their conviction was overturned in 2003 and they were re-tried. In a plea agreement to avoid further jail time, August Halbesleben “pleaded guilty to two charges of misdemeanor injury to a child and Jeanine Halbesleben pleaded guilty to one felony charge of injury to a child.”

Date: February 2000
Location: Boise, Idaho

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Two boys, ages 10 and 5, were locked in cages by their parents, Jessica Botzko and John Westover, as punishment for stealing food and whenever Westover was making drugs. The older boy was also sometimes forced to wear a dog’s shock collar; he had previously been “removed from the home in 1998 when Botzko was charged with child endangering.” Westover was wanted on child endangering charges stemming from a report of the family living in a filthy hotel room in Maumee, Ohio in 2004. The older boy had attended school until December 2003 but Botzko then pulled him from school, later telling police she was homeschooling him. “Toledo Public Schools has no record of either boy enrolled in the district or their parents applying for home-schooling.” The family moved frequently to avoid the authorities and the boys were not allowed to leave the house. Westover and Botzko also had a daughter who had died, reportedly of SIDS, several years before.

The abuse came to light in May 2007 when the boys were left alone and escaped to a neighbor’s house. The neighbor alerted police. Westover and Botzko both pleaded no contest to child endangering and were sentenced to four years in prison.

Date: May 1, 2007
Location: Toledo, Ohio

Katherine G. “Kate” Parker had 7 biological children (Megan, 21; Adam, 20; Emily, 14; Sarah and David, 11; Isaac, 9; and Joshua, 7) and 2 adopted children (Bethany, 5; and Hannah, 4; adopted from the Ukraine in 2010). Parker medically abused Joshua, Bethany, and Hannah by lying to doctors and inventing or causing illness or injury. The other children also underwent numerous procedures for medical conditions which were not independently diagnosed. Parker’s husband, Charley Parker, was not aware of the abuse. The children were homeschooled.

Joshua (who had spina bifida) and Bethany and Hannah (who both had Down syndrome) all underwent unnecessary surgeries beginning in 2007 as a result of Parker’s abuse. In late 2012, Hannah was “re-homed.” Parker also capitalized on her lies about the children’s illnesses to fraudulently solicit charitable donations online. When Joshua was hospitalized in September 2013, doctors grew suspicious of Parker’s negative response to news that Joshua’s condition was improving. After Parker’s friend notified social services, Parker coached her other children in how to respond to social workers’ questions. The minor children were removed from Parker’s home.

Parker was arrested on April 1, 2014 for “24 counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment, four counts of first-degree assault, one count of child abandonment, four counts of computer crime, four counts of identity theft, five counts of witness tampering and one count of recklessly endangering another.”

Date: September 2013
Location: Grants Pass, Oregon

Antonio Rader, age 7, was beaten, starved, and tortured by his mother, Mary Rader (right), and her mother and stepfather, Deana (left) and Dennis Beighley. Antonio’s siblings, 11- and 4-year-old sisters and a 9-year-old brother, were not abused, although his brother was underweight. Antonio had attended public school until fall 2013, “at which time his mother enrolled him in a home-based cyberschool.”

Antonio was pulled from school after teachers reported to social services that the boy was always hungry and that Rader had instructed them not to serve him breakfast. Antonio was beaten with belts for stealing food, forbidden from leaving the house, and forced to sleep on the floor in his own urine. He was not allowed to bathe and had life-threatening abscesses in his teeth. He weighed 24 lbs. when he was rescued.

The abuse came to light when Antonio managed to escape from the house and a neighbor saw him and called the authorities. Rader and the Beighleys were each charged with attempted murder, as well as aggravated assault, false imprisonment, endangering the welfare of a child, and conspiracy to commit murder.

Date: June 6, 2014
Location: Greenville, Pennsylvania

A 10-year-old boy was starved by his mother, Kelleen Deon Murray-Auguste. One of the boy’s eight siblings, a 9-year-old girl, was also 20 percent below her normal body weight. The children were homeschooled.

When the boy was rescued, he weighed 35 lbs. and was “extremely dirty, filthy, hair was matted”. The abuse came to light when the boy escaped from his home and went begging for food at a neighbor’s house. Murray-Auguste claimed that the boy had lived with his father in Haiti until about a month prior and that he had been delivered to her in his malnourished condition. She reported that she had tried to feed him but he couldn’t eat, and that she did not have the resources to get him medical attention.

Murray-Auguste was arrested on charges of “aggravated child abuse/torture and child neglect causing great harm” and pleaded no contest in August 2008. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Date: June 9, 2007
Location: Port St. Lucie, Florida

Six children, ages 9 to 17, were abused by their adoptive parents, Martin and Kathleen O’Brien. Some of the children were homeschooled. The O’Briens’ three biological children (an adult daughter, Diane, and two minor sons) were not abused and were sometimes forced to participate in the abuse.

Four of the children were biological siblings from Russia and two of them were from Guatemala. Following the children’s adoption in 2004, they were subjected to 7 years of abuse, including: being stabbed, sprayed with pepper spray, kicked in the groin, strangled, slapped, forced to stand naked outside in the cold while their family ate dinner inside, deprived of food, imprisoned in a room for days, and forced to kneel for hours on sharp rocks.

The abuse came to light when the children reported it to social services in August 2011. The O’Briens were each charged with 10 counts of felony child abuse as well as several misdemeanors.

Date: August 3, 2011
Location: Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

A 14-year-old boy was medically neglected and deprived of food by his father, Daniel Ballard, who claimed to be homeschooling him. However, when the boy was rescued, he could reportedly only read “at a fourth-grade level and struggle[d] with basic arithmetic”.

Ballard and the boy’s mother, Kalyn Loe, had lived with the boy in Ohio until they split in 2002. Both had custody of the boy; however, he lived with his mother in Phoenix, Arizona until age 10 when she sent him to New Orleans, Louisiana for a short visit with Ballard in summer 2005. Ballard apparently used the confusion caused by Hurricane Katrina a few months later to abduct the boy, whom he did not allow to contact his mother for four more years. Father and son moved frequently, living in several apartments and RVs and once an abandoned building. Ballard did not take the boy to a doctor during this time: when he was rescued, the boy had several untreated broken bones which had healed improperly and a severe foot infection. The boy also had welts on his back and patches of missing hair. He weighed 60 lbs. when he was found in a feces-filled RV which had no food and no running water.

The abuse came to light in September 2009 when a police officer serving an eviction notice found the boy in the RV. Ballard, who had an outstanding warrant in New Mexico for drugs, was charged with cruelty to a juvenile. The boy was sent back to his mother.

Date: September 9, 2009
Location: Toca, Louisiana

Fifteen adopted special-needs children of Bill and Debbie Rettew were physically abused, medically neglected, and denied food as punishment. The Rettews had adopted at least nine other special-needs children over the years in addition to their biological daughter Deborah Autumn Rettew (age 24) and Debbie’s biological son from an earlier marriage, Wilbur Beddingfield (age 32). All the children were privately adopted. The Rettews were conservative Christians and homeschooled all their children but one.

The Rettews first came to the attention of social services in November 1998 when one of their adolescent adopted children ran away from home and refused to return, citing physical abuse by Bill Rettew. The court ordered an evaluation of the Rettew children in June 2000; when the evaluation panel returned its review in November 2001, the children were removed. Some of the adult children who no longer lived with the Rettews reported being “slammed into walls, whipped with a belt, and thrown down stairs.” They “did not have their own toothbrushes, [and] were bathed only once a week.” The food storage area was kept locked—when they were rescued, “the children had voracious appetites and commented on the availability of food in the new home”. One of the girls told the authorities that “she was a surrogate mother, waking up at 5 a.m. to feed and clothe the other children.” The children did not receive adequate medical, dental, and mental health care.

In February 2002, as part of a deal to get some of their children back, the Rettews agreed to a court order that found that “they physically and educationally neglected their 15 children.” The court ordered that most of the children be enrolled in public or private school, that they be allowed ample socialization time as decided by the in-home therapy team, and that they be provided with any medical care or therapy advised by social services. At least three of the children asked that they not be returned to the Rettews; it is not clear how many eventually returned.

Date: November 8, 2001
Location: Greer, Greenville County, South Carolina

Sixteen children were physically abused and deprived of food by their father, Richard Jay Swank. The fourth child, a boy born around 1985, was Swank’s scapegoat; he was tortured, imprisoned, and sexually abused for 18 years. The children’s mother, Monita Swank, was “also a victim of physical abuse and possibly spousal rape [and] was not aware of the sexual abuse of her son.” After school officials repeatedly called social services about the children’s bruises, Swank pulled them from school to homeschool them around 1992, although “there were no books or worksheets” and little instruction actually took place. Swank’s daughter Melissa (b. 1982) was put in charge of caring for the younger children; by the time she was 18, she only knew basic addition and subtraction.

Swank was a substitute teacher, public school psychologist, and published author. He referred to the child who was his main victim as an “abomination” and abused him beginning around age 4. Swank forced the boy to spend every day standing in a corner, and the boy was forced to sleep handcuffed to various objects or imprisoned in a box at night. The boy was only allowed to eat table scraps and was not allowed to interact with the other children. Swank constantly beat the boy with a variety of objects and often knocked him unconscious. At one point he broke the boy’s nose, permanently injuring him, and did not seek medical attention for him. Swank also frequently tortured the boy by attaching vice grips to his genitals. When the boy was 10, his father began raping him twice a week.

As each of the children reached the age of 18, they left home and joined the military to escape. In 2005, Joshua Swank (b. 1980) died of an accidental overdose; his father “collected $500,000 on [his] Army life insurance policy and bought a sports car.” The Swanks divorced around this time and Monita took custody of the seven children who remained at home. These events prompted Melissa to persuade her little brother, Swank’s main victim, to report the abuse to the police. He did so in March 2009.

Swank was found guilty of 11 counts of sexual abuse and one count of physical abuse. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Date: March 12, 2009
Location: Victorville, California

Justin Gerard Carlos, age 14, was starved and medically neglected by his parents, Mark S. Carlos and Julie L. Carlos. Justin died of pneumonia and sepsis complicated by malnutrition; when he died he was emaciated, covered with bedsores, and showed signs of traumatic brain injury. Justin’s 16-year-old brother was also medically neglected during a similar illness. Justin and his six siblings (Shannon; Michael, 22; Therese, 19; Matthew, 16; Colette, 12; and Maura, 11) were all homeschooled and “cut off from the world”; police reported that they “all appeared thin and not properly cared for…with messy hair and disheveled clothes.”

Michael Carlos called 911 when Justin lost consciousness. He and Matthew were taken to the hospital while the two youngest girls were taken into social services’ custody. The Carloses pleaded not guilty to “negligent cruelty and risk of injury to a minor”. Prosecutions are still ongoing.

Date: May 2, 2013
Location: Norwich, Connecticut

Charlie Bothuell V, age 12, was physically and emotionally abused by his father, Charlie Bothuell IV, and his stepmother, Monique Dillard-Bothuell. Dillard-Bothuell also imprisoned Charlie in the basement for eleven days without food. Dillard-Bothuell’s other two children, 4-year-old Charles Luc Bothuell and 10-month-old Lillian Monique Bothuell, were also neglected. Charlie was homeschooled.

Charlie had lived with his father since 2012. Bothuell forced Charlie to complete an extreme daily exercise regimen and beat him regularly with a PVC pipe. When he was rescued, Charlie had a large scar on his chest from the beatings. Dillard-Bothuell also punched Charlie and threatened to kill him. On June 14, as punishment for Charlie’s failure to complete his exercise routine, Dillard-Bothuell forced him to hide behind a barricade in the basement without food or water, threatening to harm him if he came out. The boy’s father reported him missing and police searched for Charlie until he was found in the basement on June 25.

On June 26, Dillard-Bothuell was arrested on an unrelated charge until police could gather enough evidence to file charges of child abuse against the couple. All three children were removed from the home by social services.

Date: June 25, 2014
Location: Detroit, Michigan

Raashanai Coley, age 11 (left), was starved and beaten to death by her mother, Nicholette Lawrence (right). Her stepfather Robert Lawrence, who lived in the home, has not been charged. Raashanai was homeschooled and, according to some reports, autistic. Her two younger half-siblings attended school and were apparently not abused.

Around the time of Raashanai’s 2003 birth in Oregon, Nicholette Lawrence lost custody of her first child, a boy, and pleaded guilty to transporting an underage girl across state lines to engage in prostitution. After child services began investigating Lawrence for exposing Raashanai to her adult business, Lawrence signed over guardianship of Raashanai to her own father and stepmother. Lawrence reclaimed her daughter in 2007 when she moved to Texas with her new husband Robert Lawrence; the family moved to Illinois shortly thereafter. In August 2011 Robert Lawrence was charged with battering Raashanai but he continued to live in the home. In June 2012 Raashanai was withdrawn from school to be homeschooled. The family’s neighbors did not know that Raashanai was living in the home, although they frequently saw her siblings.

Raashanai died September 5 after Nicholette Lawrence struck her in the abdomen on September 3, rupturing her stomach. She did not seek medical attention for her daughter. Raashanai weighed 55 lbs. at the time of her death. Lawrence was charged with first-degree murder and her other children were removed from the home.

Date: September 5, 2014
Location: Waukegan, Illinois

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Nine boys, ages 12 to 17, were beaten, starved, and imprisoned by Nathan Jessop. All were current or former members of the FLDS who had been sent by their parents to live with Jessop due to their supposed disobedience; several of the boys did not know what they had done to be sent there and one reported that he had been sent away for exchanging text messages with a girl. Tammy Jessop, one of Nathan’s stepmothers, homeschooled the boys, although “education appeared to stop when the boys were old enough to pursue a GED diploma.”

Some of the boys had been with Jessop since late 2012, when they had lived in Wyoming. In early 2013 they moved to Idaho, where Tammy and two girls, ages 20 and 16, joined them in an adjoining home. One of the boys was Nathan Jessop’s son, age 16; three were his stepsons; and three others were his nephews. The boys were beaten with boards and brooms; pantries were kept locked and the boys were not allowed to eat breakfast unless they woke up by 6 am. The boys were punished by being sent out into the cold without jackets and one of the boys was imprisoned for two days in a furnace room. The boys were also exploited for their labor, being forced to work without pay making furniture for Jessop to sell.

The abuse came to light when one of the boys ran away and reported it to Holding Out Help, a group that assists people leaving polygamous families. The other eight boys were removed from the home by social services. Two of these, brothers, chose to remain in foster care, while the other six were returned to their parents. Jessop pleaded guilty to three counts of misdemeanor injury to a child: one from his imprisonment of the boy in the furnace room, and two from his failure to report to the authorities that both his son and the boy who contacted HOH had run away. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail.

Date: July 10, 2014
Location: Big Piney, Wyoming; Pocatello, Idaho

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A 13-year-old boy was starved and imprisoned in a bathroom by his father, Peter D. Hansen. The boy’s 10-year-old sister was also starved. Both were homeschooled.

After the Hansens were evicted from their home in 2009, they took up residence in their Seventh-Day Adventist church. Hansen kept his children on a strict vegetarian diet with two meals per day. As punishment for disobedience, the boy was repeatedly locked in a cold church bathroom with no light, sometimes for over a week at a time.

The abuse was discovered after a call to the child abuse hotline. The courts did not find enough evidence to convict Hansen for food deprivation, but he was convicted for the imprisonment. He was sentenced to three years in prison but only served 100 days. The children’s mother, who lived with them, was not charged.

Date: November 2009
Location: Springfield, Missouri

Seven children—Erina (age 19, right), Kathryn (16), Benjamin (14), Mary (13), James (11), Frederick (9), and Jane (8)—were starved and neglected by their parents, Michael and JoAnn McGuckin (center). All were homeschooled.

Both Michael and JoAnn suffered from mental illness, and the family lived in poverty completely off the grid. The children subsisted mainly on lily pads and pond water; the house was filled with garbage. Erina, the oldest, was primarily responsible for homeschooling the children and caring for her youngest sister. Erina left home in 2000 to join the military but was medically discharged due to complications of long-term malnourishment. Then, in May 2001, Michael McGuckin died of malnourishment after a long struggle with multiple sclerosis. These events prompted Erina to report the family. When authorities arrived to remove the children, a five-day standoff ensued.

JoAnn McGuckin was arrested on charges of child injury which were later dismissed. She was reunited with her children in 2002.

Date: May 29, 2001
Location: Sandpoint, Idaho

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Five children, girls aged 15, 14, and 6 and boys aged 13 and 11, were burned, beaten, starved, and imprisoned by their adoptive parents, Patrick (center) and Sherry Kelley. Their grandparents, George and Shirley Long, knew about the abuse but did nothing to stop it. After the children were withdrawn from school when the family moved to Big Lake, “the Kelleys soon gave up trying to home school them.”

The children were placed with the Kelleys in 1998 after being removed from their parents, who were substance abusers. They were forced to work outside 20 hours a day. They were beaten with metal pipes and shovels. They were sometimes forced to sleep outside in the Alaska winter with no heat. The younger boy, who now goes by T.J. White (pictured at right), suffered burns over a large part of his body which went untreated; he also lost a finger to frostbite and had his arm broken by a beating. The children were locked in bedrooms and tied to beds; the older boy was chained to a tree and imprisoned in a coffin-like sealed box. They were punished for eating and deprived of food.

The abuse came to light when George Long called the police after one of the children received a particularly vicious beating. Sherry and Patrick Kelley were each charged with 9 felonies and 34 misdemeanors; in a later plea agreement they Sherry pleaded no contest to assault and criminal nonsupport while Patrick pleaded no contest to child endangerment. In November 2006 they were sentenced to time served. George Long was convicted of assault and sentenced to time served.

Date: July 9, 2004
Location: Big Lake, Wasilla, Alaska

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Jamie Leighanna Brooks, age 11 (who later changed her name to Katelyn Colbie Pendleton), was starved, beaten, and scalded by her caregivers, Kizza Monika Lopez and Melonea Feagin. Lopez had pulled Jamie out of school to homeschool her. It is unclear whether Lopez’s other children were abused.

When she was 9, Jamie’s biological mother Velma Hare gave her to Lopez. Lopez and Feagin, her babysitter, whipped Jamie with plastic coat hangers, threw scalding water on her, alternatively starved and force-fed her, and made her sleep in a closet. An anonymous tip brought the authorities to rescue Jamie.

Lopez and Feagin were convicted of child abuse. Lopez was also charged with neglect and sentenced to 20 years in prison; Feagin got 15. Jamie was adopted into the Pendleton family and changed her name to Katelyn.

Date: May 8, 2008
Location: Fort Walton Beach, Florida

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