Three children, a 9-year-old girl, a 7-year-old boy, and a 6-year-old boy, were tortured by their adoptive parents, Charles and Suzan Sealock. The Sealocks’ biological child, a 14-year-old boy, and an adopted 3-year-old child were not abused. The children were homeschooled.

The seven-year-old boy was imprisoned in a bathroom for days at a time with only baby food to eat. He was also beaten, pinched and bitten by his parents. The other two children showed similar previous injuries. The abuse came to light when the 7-year-old boy escaped and went to a neighbor for help. The Sealocks were charged with aggravated child abuse and false imprisonment.

Date: August 30, 2014
Location: Dandridge, Tennessee

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Four children—Sheryl* (age 16), Harlan* (13), and Callie* (10), along with their 16-year-old uncle—were emotionally and physically abused by their foster parents, John and Margaret “Margie” Cantrell. The children were frequently “homeschooled”—that is, kept home from school as a form of punishment while Margie claimed to be homeschooling them.

The children had been removed from the home of Shauntel Mayo, the mother of three of them, and her boyfriend Jamie Pittman, due to neglect. In 2005 they had been placed with the Cantrells, who had raised more than 30 children including their three biological children. Shortly afterwards, Margie Cantrell went to the authorities with reports that the children had disclosed ritual sexual abuse in a swingers’ club in Mineola, Texas. After 7 people were tried and convicted in the case, in 2008 two of the Cantrells’ former foster children from California came forward to allege sexual abuse by John Cantrell.

The abuse came to light in 2013 when the children’s 21-year-old foster sister, who still lived in the home, reported it to social services, who removed the children from the Cantrells’ home. Sheryl and the 16-year-old boy alleged that she had been slapped, punched, and pulled by the hair and that he had been “spanked with a wooden back scratcher so hard that it had broken.” The children were forced to sleep in an unheated garage and the food pantries were kept locked. The children had not seen a doctor while in the Cantrells’ care. Three other former foster children reported that Margie was controlling and manipulative and would yell at the children and brainwash them into believing stories she made up. These allegations threw the conclusions of the 7 Mineola cases into doubt.

*Not their real names

Date: October 28, 2013
Location: Lake Brenda, Tyler, Texas

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Two girls, ages 5 and 4, were neglected by their parents, James and Anne Cardona. The Cardonas claimed to be homeschooling them.

The 5-year-old had rotten teeth and hair that was matted and filled with lice; the 4-year-old was still in diapers. The girls were severely obese and had difficulty walking: the 5-year-old weighed 158 pounds and the 4-year-old weighed 89. The girls spent most of their days locked up inside the house, which was filled with cockroaches and giant spiders which repeatedly bit them.

The abuse came to light when police responded to a domestic dispute at the Cardonas’ house and encountered the girls. The Cardonas were charged with felony child cruelty and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Date: August 16, 2010
Location: Marietta, Georgia

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Seven children—boys ages 11, 7, 6, 6, 2, and 18 months, and a girl of unknown age—were medically neglected and starved by their parents, Adrienne Bartholomew and James Brothers, and their grandmother Debra Nelson. The children were homeschooled: the 11-year-old attended online school, and the 7-, 6-, and 6-year-old boys had individual education plans whereby they attended the public school one day per week to receive special education services. Five of the children (the 7-year-old, the two 6-year-olds, the 2-year-old, and the 18-month-old) were disabled by a rare genetic disorder that made them unable to retain healthy fat deposits.

Despite the children’s complex medical needs and the presence of the children’s grandmother as an in-home caregiver, the 11-year-old boy was primarily responsible for caring for and feeding his younger siblings while the adults in the home neglected them, bathing them only once a week and cleaning the house only in preparation for social worker visits.

The abuse came to light when the 18-month-old, Isaac Brothers-Bartholomew, died of dehydration and malnourishment and his parents called the police. When the other children were rescued, they were covered in vomit and urine and severely malnourished—one of the 6-year-olds weighed only 23 pounds. Bartholomew, Brothers, and Nelson were each charged with involuntary manslaughter, endangering children, and patient endangerment. Brothers was sentenced to six years in prison while Bartholomew received three.

Date: November 6, 2012
Location: Vermilion Township, Ohio

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Six girls and five boys, ages 10 months to 18 years, were severely neglected by their parents, Jeremy and Christine Long. The children were second-generation homeschoolers—their father, Jeremy Long, had been homeschooled and wanted the same for his children. However, when the children were rescued, they were illiterate and “didn’t know the days of the week, their ABC’s, or even how to spell their own names.” There was no food in the house and the youngest children were malnourished.

The Longs had begun living together when Jeremy was 16 and Christine was 17; their oldest child Miranda was born when they were 18 and 19 respectively. All the children were homebirthed and never received vaccinations or dental care. The Long children spent their lives “without food, water, electricity, heat, education, medical care, bedding or proper clothing and shoes.”

The Longs lost custody of their children and were charged with cruelty to children and failure to educate. Jeremy Long was sentenced to three years in prison; Christine Long did not receive prison time.

Date: July 31, 2008
Location: Hephzibah, Georgia

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Three boys, ages 12, 11, and 8, were tortured by their grandparents, James and Cheri Crawford. The boys had been pulled from school to be homeschooled.

The boys had come to live with their grandparents after their father was murdered and their mother, a drug addict, abandoned them. The boys were starved and forced to eat spoiled food; they often had only a bucket for a bathroom. They were forced to do heavy manual labor and to stand at attention outside for hours at a time. The oldest boy was imprisoned in a trailer for a year and a half and spent most of the time blindfolded, resulting in a forehead scar. The 11-year-old was forced to shock his older brother with a shock collar and also had to sleep outside in a storage shed.

The abuse came to light when a neighbor witnessed Cheri abusing one of the children and called the authorities. Cheri and James Crawford entered Alford pleas and were sentenced to 8 and 7 years in prison, respectively.

Date: July 2009
Location: Hartsville, South Carolina

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Four children—Richard Felsch (right), b. 1988; his twin sisters, b. 1987; and an unrelated boy, b. 1995—were imprisoned and physically and sexually abused by Sylvia and Michael Wenger (left), their adoptive parents. The children were homeschooled. It is unknown whether the Wengers’ biological children were also abused.

Three of the children were placed with the Wengers in 1996 after they were abused in their biological mother’s home. The fourth boy later joined them. At the Wengers’, the children were beaten with boards, “forced to stand in a corner for hours, locked into closets and force-fed for punishment.” The twin girls and the youngest boy were also repeatedly raped by Michael Wenger, who had begun dating his wife Sylvia when she was 14 and he was 21.

The abuse came to light in 2001 when one of the girls escaped and reported it to the authorities. The Wengers served 7 years in prison.

Date: 2001
Location: Chewelah, Washington

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Five girls, ages 4 to 11, were starved, beaten, and sexually abused by their adoptive mother, Jessica Banks. The girls were removed from public school in 2004 shortly after their adoption. Banks was the pastor of the Word of Life Apostolic Church, a “satanic cult” where the girls were homeschooled.

The children began living with Banks in 2000 after they were removed from their abusive birth family. Banks made them sleep in an unheated room in her garage and wear two layers of diapers under long black dresses. The girls were beaten daily with various objects, forced to eat spoiled food and clean Banks’ house. Banks drugged them with sleeping pills and raped two of them while the others watched.

Banks was arrested after one of the girls, age 6, was found emaciated and bruised on the pavement near the church. Banks was sentenced to life in prison.

Date: June 2005
Location: Moreno Valley, California

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Gregory Jean Jr., age 13, was imprisoned, starved, beaten, and forced to work as a maid for four years by his father, Gregory Jean Sr., and his stepmother Samantha Joy Davis. Davis’ biological children were also abused—she “was on probation for cutting her biological son’s tongue with a pair of hot scissors in 2004″—but they were not imprisoned or starved as Gregory was. After Gregory reported the abuse to a school counselor and investigators failed to substantiate the claim, he was withdrawn from school to be homeschooled, which consisted of copying words out of the dictionary.

Gregory first went to visit with Jean and Davis in 2010, but Jean insisted that he stay to avoid having to pay child support payments to Gregory’s biological mother, Lisa Smith. Though Gregory was initially treated well, eventually he was forced to sleep in the garage with a bucket as a toilet and forbidden from celebrating Christmas with the family. When Davis was not pleased with his schoolwork or his labor, she beat him with a stick and deprived him of food.

The abuse finally came to light when Gregory managed to contact Smith, who had reported him missing. After a long search of the house, police finally found him hidden behind a wall. Jean and Davis were each charged with false imprisonment, cruelty to children, and obstruction. Davis’ three teenaged children who lived in the home were also charged with obstruction.

Date: November 29, 2014
Location: Jonesboro, Georgia

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Two children—E., a 6-year-old boy, and R., a 1-year-old girl—were starved, beaten, and emotionally abused by their adoptive parents, Kristen and Douglas Barbour. The Barbours’ two biological children, ages 2 and 4, were not abused. E. was homeschooled.

E. and R. were adopted from Ethiopia in March 2012. The Barbours were active in their local church and Douglas Barbour was a former deputy attorney general, but they were not prepared for parenting two internationally adopted children. When E. had incontinence issues, they forced him to stand in a dark bathroom as punishment. He was told that his body was unsafe for other people and limited in which bathrooms he could use and which food he could eat. He was also thrown to the ground and hit his head. R. was also abused, although it is unknown what exactly the Barbours did to her.

The abuse came to light in October 2012 when child welfare officials at the hospital noticed that E. had lost 10 pounds since his adoption and that R. had multiple head fractures in various stages of healing. When they were removed from the Barbours’ home, E. had “lesions from being kept in urine-soaked clothing for long periods of time” and R. had permanent brain damage. The Barbours pleaded no contest to child endangerment and Kristen Barbour was sentenced to 6 to 12 months in prison. Douglas Barbour was sentenced to probation and they were allowed to keep custody of their biological children.

Date: October 4, 2012
Location: Franklin Park, Pennsylvania

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Eight children—seven girls, of whom Aziza Kibibi, b. 1978, was the oldest, and one boy—were physically and sexually abused by their father, Aswad Ayinde, a music producer for The Fugees. The children’s mother, Beverly, knew about the abuse and did nothing to stop it. The children were all homebirthed and homeschooled, as Ayinde opposed birth certificates and modern medicine.

Ayinde began raping Aziza when she was 8 years old and eventually fathered four children with her, several of whom had a rare genetic disorder due to inbreeding (Aziza and four of her children are pictured above). He also raped four of his other daughters and fathered a child with two of them as part of a plan to create his own “pure blood” race. He starved the children and beat them “using wooden boards and steel-toed boots”. He kept them isolated and forbade them from watching TV.

The abuse came to light for the first time when Aziza’s grandmother alerted the authorities; however, the investigation was unsuccessful. Social services got involved again when Aziza brought her sick child to the hospital; around that time, in 2003, Beverly and Aswad Ayinde separated and the children went to live with their mother. Aziza and her sisters did not decide to press charges until 2006 when they discovered Ayinde had young daughters with other women who were in danger of abuse. Ayinde was sentenced to 90 years in prison for the rapes.

Date: 2006
Location: Paterson, New Jersey

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Thirteen children—ranging in age from 8 months to 15 years—were starved, imprisoned, beaten, and medically neglected by their father, Winnfred Wright (left), and his four wives (from left to right) Carol Bremner, Deirdre Wilson, Mary Campbell, and Kali Polk-Matthews. Wright’s fifth wife, Susan Weber, who had left Wright’s cultlike home around 1990, had two additional children with him (one of whom died in infancy). The children were homeschooled.

The children were beaten with a belt, had their mouths covered with tape, and were forced to eat chili peppers as punishment. One girl was “tied to a playpen at night for two weeks as punishment for eating during a fast”. The children were kept to a strict vegetarian diet and many of them had bone deformities due to poor nutrition. They were not permitted to leave the house and the windows were often covered. The children never visited the doctor or dentist and most were found to have rickets when they were rescued.

The abuse came to light in 2001 when 19-month-old Ndigo Campisi-Nyah-Wright died of malnutrition and the women brought him to the emergency room. Authorities then removed the other children from the home. Bremner, who had leukemia, died in state custody, and the charges against Polk-Matthews were dropped. The others pleaded guilty to child endangerment; Wright was sentenced to 16 years in prison, Campbell to 10, and Wilson to 7.

Date: November 13, 2001
Location: Marinwood, California

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Dayna Lorrae Broussard, age 8, was beaten to death by four adults—Willie K. Chambers, Brian J. Brinson, Constance Zipporah Jackson and Frederick Paul Doolittle—in the Ecclesia Athletic Association, a new religious movement run by Dayna’s father, Eldridge Broussard Jr. After her death, 53 other children were removed from the compound, showing signs of systematic beating and food deprivation. The children were homeschooled.

Chambers, Brinson, Jackson, and Doolittle were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Broussard, along with three other members of the group, was later indicted for child slavery; Broussard died of natural causes before he could be brought to trial.

Date: October 13, 1988
Location: Sandy, Oregon

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Ten special-needs children—six boys ages 14, 14, 12, 8, 8 and 3; and four girls ages 12, 10, 5 and 5—were physically abused by their adoptive parents, Dave and Wonda Dixon. They were beaten with paddles, switches, and a water hose. The 12-year-old girl was singled out for abuse and was starved and deprived of medical care; her parents urged her siblings to hit her. After teachers reported her emaciated appearance to child services, the Dixons removed her from school to homeschool her.

The abuse came to light when a child services investigator saw the girl in August 2013 and ordered her hospitalization. She weighed 57 lbs. when she was rescued. The Dixons were indicted that October on charges of injury to a child and imprisoned. The children were removed to foster homes.

Date: August 21, 2013
Location: Lubbock, Texas

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The body of eight-year-old Shane Alan Coffman was discovered in a freezer in a trailer home in February 1996. His five siblings, ages seven to twelve, were taken into productive custody. All of the children had been abused, and two were so malnourished they had to be hospitalized. Authorities believe Shane died due to excessive discipline at the hands of his mother, Bertha Jean Coffman, and her boyfriend, Donald Lee Gilson, in August 1995. The children had been taken into foster care briefly two years before, but were returned to Coffman after she met certain requirements. Coffman and her children moved into Gilson’s trailer in June 1995.

The pastor at the church where the children had attended Sunday school reported that he had frequently fed the children at church, and that he had called social services with his concerns on several occasions. However, when Coffman moved in with Gilson the children were no longer allowed to attend church. The school district reported that the children had been withdrawn from school off and on, but that at the beginning of the school year the mother had sent a letter reporting her intent to homecshool. “It raised a red flag for us,” the district’s spokesperson admitted. “But we can’t police home-school.”

Gilson admitted in court that he killed Shane by beating him with a board on August 17, 1995. Gilson was given the death penalty and was executed in 2009. Coffman was sentenced to life in prison.

Date: February 18, 1996
Location: Little Axe, Oklahoma

Four children, ages 14, 13, 12, and 9, were beaten, imprisoned, starved, and medically neglected by their father, Raymond Daniel Thurmond, and their mother, Ida Thurmond. (The two oldest children were Raymond’s from a previous marriage; the 12-year-old was Ida’s from a previous marriage; and the youngest child was their biological child.) Though Ida claimed to be homeschooling the children, investigators found no evidence of this and the children were not registered with their school district. Only the oldest child had ever been to school, and he had been withdrawn in second grade.

The children had been kept imprisoned since August 2005 in a filthy trailer with padlocks on the front door and the bedroom doors. In the three years they were held prisoner, the children were only allowed out of the trailer once. They were beaten with a steel-toed boot and were deprived of food. When they were rescued, they were undernourished and underweight. One of the children had a serious medical condition that had not been treated. Originally police believed Raymond had sexually assaulted Ida, who claimed to have been a prisoner also; however, later evidence led to the finding that Ida was involved in the child abuse.

The abuse came to light when Raymond told Ida he was leaving her for another woman and she took the children to a domestic violence shelter. An employee at the shelter called the police, who arrested Raymond in August 2008. In December 2008, Ida lost custody of all four children, and she was arrested for her part in the abuse in October 2009. Both Raymond and Ida were charged with child cruelty and false imprisonment. Raymond pleaded guilty and was sentenced to time served.

Date: August 4, 2008
Location: Lavonia, Georgia

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Three children, ages 10, 7 and 1, were neglected and deprived of food by their mother, Jaileen Lorraine Soliman. The two older children had been homeschooled for the past two months after the 7-year-old girl was suspended for a week and Soliman chose to withdraw them both.

The children were deprived of meals if they did not do their chores. The home was filled with pet feces and one of the children was covered in insect bites when they were rescued. The abuse came to light when police went to the home in response to a complaint. The children were removed from the home and Soliman was charged with child neglect.

Date: November 14, 2007
Location: Port St. Lucie, Florida

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A 15-year-old girl was beaten, imprisoned, and nearly starved to death by her grandfather, Steve Sells, his wife Joetta Sells, and Steve’s daughter Crystal Sells. The girl, who had special needs, was withdrawn from school in 2010 to be homeschooled. The girl’s 4-year-old sibling was not reported to be abused.

Steve Sells got custody of the girl and her sibling in 2009 when their biological mother Jannifer Sells abandoned them. The girl was kept in a locked room day and night with only a mattress and a bucket to relieve herself. When she was rescued she weighed 38 pounds, she was covered with feces, and her bones protruded through her skin.

The abuse came to light when Joetta and Crystal Sells found her unresponsive and waited 3 hours before calling an ambulance. Steve, Joetta, and Crystal were each charged with multiple felonies, including neglect of a dependent, criminal confinement, and battery.

Date: December 1, 2014
Location: Anderson, Indiana

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Stacy Beckman, age 10, and Jeremy Beckman, age 8, were imprisoned, starved, and physically and sexually abused by their foster parents, Shane and Judy Huxoll. The children had been pulled from school to be homeschooled, which “mostly consisted of crossword puzzles, math problems and learning how to tell time…Every wrong answer resulted in a beating from Shane.”

Stacy and Jeremy were removed from the home of their neglectful birth mother, Cindy Beckman, when Stacy was 4 years old. The Huxolls cared for the children at first, but the situation soon escalated into an abusive one. The Huxolls “kept [Stacy] locked in her bedroom without blankets or clothing, beat her almost daily with a leather belt, kicked her in the face, pulled her hair out and did not feed her for up to 48 hours at a time.” She was also raped by Shane Huxoll. Stacy weighed 51 lbs. when she was rescued.

When Stacy discovered her brother was receiving similar treatment, she escaped from her prison through a hole in the rotted floor. She was found by a neighbor, who called the police. The Huxolls were each charged with child abuse causing serous bodily injury. They made a plea deal and were sentenced to four years in prison.

Date: April 1995
Location: Greeley, Colorado

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Seven children, ages 7 to 17, were neglected by their mother, Sonia Kubisak, who claimed to be homeschooling them.

In March 2014, Kubisak moved the children to a campsite in Oklahoma, reportedly to escape an abusive relationship in Pennsylvania. Kubisak starved the children and medicated them with cattle wormer and flea treatment. When the children were rescued in August, the campsite was covered with human feces and rotting animal feed.

After they were rescued, the children were diagnosed with “multiple illnesses closely associated with neglect and malnutrition.” Kubisak was charged with seven counts of neglect.

Date: August 1, 2014
Location: Albion, Pushmataha County, Oklahoma

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