A 13-year-old boy was neglected and deprived of food by his mother, Jennifer Yanke, and his stepfather Stephan Alcox. The boy had been pulled out of school and was reportedly homeschooling himself.

The boy was left alone in a feces-strewn vacant house for a month while his parents lived in a nearby hotel. The boy slept on an air mattress with only a space heater; he had no running water and little food. The abuse came to light when the boy’s grandmother called the police “after she learned that he was living alone, homeschooling himself and surviving on a diet of cereal and dry pasta.” Yanke and Alcox were both charged with abandoning and endangering a child.

Date: November 19, 2014
Location: Dallas, Texas

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Raysate Chain Knight, age 6, was starved, imprisoned, and beaten to death by her stepfather, Raymond Jefferson, and her mother Connie Knight. Knight’s four other children, girls ages 16, 13, and 8 and a 4-year-old boy, were not abused. Raysate was homeschooled.

Raysate was born addicted to cocaine and removed from her mother’s custody. She lived with her grandmother, aunt and uncle until she was 4 years old and her mother reclaimed her. Knight and Jefferson kept Raysate locked in a urine-soaked closet, fed her less than their other children, burned her with cigarettes, and beat her with thorny branches. When Raysate turned the TV on too loud in September 2001, Jefferson beat her unconscious. Knight and Jefferson did not call an ambulance for fear of the abuse being discovered, and Raysate died as a result of her injuries.

The abuse came to light when Raysate’s body was found dumped in a water-filled ditch. During the six months it took to identify her body, she was known in the media as “Angel Doe”. Her grandmother eventually identified her from a police sketch. Knight and Jefferson were arrested in March 2003 in Lafayette, Louisiana, where they had fled after the murder. Both were found guilty of injury to a child. Knight was sentenced to 50 years in prison and Jefferson was sentenced to life.

Date: September 7, 2001
Location: Houston, Texas

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Eddie Sizemore Jr. (age 17) and his three siblings (ages 11, 8, and 4) were imprisoned, deprived of food and water, and neglected by their parents, Lucinda and Edward Sizemore Sr. The children were homebirthed and did not have birth certificates. Eddie attended first grade but was then pulled from school. The other three children never attended school and were incapable of speaking English—they devised their own language to communicate among themselves.

The Sizemores moved to Ohio from Hazard, Kentucky in 1988. In 1996 child services began investigating them, but stopped when the Sizemores claimed to be moving back to Kentucky. The children were not allowed to leave the house because Lucinda Sizemore told them that “if they went outside and people saw them not being in school, she’d get in trouble.” Eddie was made to sleep under only a plastic sheet during the winter. When they were rescued, the younger children could not bathe or dress themselves. One of them had an untreated hernia.

The abuse came to light when Eddie wrote a letter to his aunt begging for her help. He had been afraid to ask for help before due to fear of punishment by his father. The Sizemores were each charged with “four counts of nonsupport of a dependent, a misdemeanor” and sentenced to one year in prison.

Date: January 1999
Location: Dayton, Ohio

Nine children, ages 3 to 17, were starved, neglected, and sexually abused by their parents, James E. Haskin Jr. and Lucinda Catherine Haskin. The Haskins claimed to be homeschooling them.

According to an affidavit, the children were neglected from December 2009 to October 20, 2011. The Haskins “withheld proper food, shelter, clothing, hygiene and education.” Two of the girls were sexually abused by James Haskin, and the 16-year-old girl gave birth to his child in August 2010. Haskin told her the child was born dead and allegedly buried her on his property (the baby’s body was never found). Though the girls told their mother more than ten times about the abuse, she did nothing to prevent it.

The abuse came to light when police learned that the Haskins were associates of Marty Hester, who was arrested October 28, 2011 for aggravated possession of child pornography. James Haskin was found guilty on “nine counts of child neglect and three counts of sexual abuse”; he was sentenced to 245 years in prison. Lucinda Haskin pleaded no contest to similar charges and was found unfit to stand trial.

Date: October 20, 2011
Location: Monroe, Oklahoma

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A 14-year-old boy was starved, caged, and physically abused by his mother, Tina Louise Graham, and her fiance Vernon D. Widner. The boy was withdrawn from school in January 2011 to be homeschooled, although no education actually took place. The boy’s older minor sister participated in the abuse; it is unclear if she or the boy’s other siblings were also abused.

The boy was beaten with a horsewhip and belt, strangled, fed one meal per day, and locked in a dog kennel several times, once for an entire day. His parents forced him to bathe with extremely hot water and bleach; they also threatened to cut off his genitals and threatened him with a loaded gun.

The abuse came to light in March 2011, when the boy’s repeated attempts to run away from home brought him to the police’s attention. He told them that being unable to escape the abuse by going to school had made it too much to bear. Graham and Widner were charged with multiple felonies including criminal confinement, battery, and neglect of a dependent.

Date: March 2011
Location: Lowell, Indiana

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Fourteen children were physically abused and medically neglected in The Body, a cultlike organization controlled by their grandfather, Roland Robidoux, and his son Jacques Robidoux. When they were rescued, the victims included: 4 children of Jacques and Karen Robidoux; 5 children (ages 3 to 10) of Dennis and Michelle (Robidoux) Mingo; 4 daughters of David and Rebecca (Robidoux) Corneau; and 1 infant daughter of Mark and Trinette (Robidoux) Daneau. Three additional children (Jacques’s son Samuel and two of the Corneaus’ children) died before they could be removed from their parents’ custody. All the children were homeschooled.

Roland encouraged sect members “to beat their children with paddles to ‘break their spirit’ and encouraged spanking babies who were just a few months old.” Sect members opposed traditional medicine (including eyeglasses), practiced unassisted homebirths, and never took their children to a doctor. The Corneaus’ two dead children—Jeremiah, born in spring 1999, and an unnamed child born in late 2001—were stillborn due to complications in unassisted homebirths. Samuel Robidoux was 11 months old when he was deliberately starved to death after a religious vision by Michelle Mingo.

The murder came to light in November 1999 when Dennis Mingo fled the sect with his children and reported it to the police. The rest of the children were subsequently removed by social services. Jacques Robidoux was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Karen Robidoux was convicted of assault and sentenced to time served. Michelle Mingo pleaded guilty to accessory to murder and was sentenced to time served. Roland Robidoux was never charged and died of natural causes in 2006.

Date: November 10, 1999
Location: Attleboro, Massachusetts

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Two girls, ages 11 and 13, and a mentally disabled 17-year-old boy were imprisoned, starved, and physically and sexually abused by their adoptive parents, David V. Moss and ReJeana Moss. Their 9-year-old adopted brother was not abused. The children were homeschooled.

The children were adopted around 2004, but the abuse did not begin until 2011 shortly after the Mosses’ two biological sons, who also report being abused, left the home. The three older adopted children were kept locked in their rooms with a bucket for a bathroom. The windows were boarded up and they were not given enough to eat. They were beaten so frequently with a paddle that it had bloodstains on it. The two girls were also sexually abused by David Moss.

The abuse came to light in August 2013, when the two girls managed to escape from their room, took their parents’ car, and crashed it. They reported the abuse to the police during the investigation of the crash, and the four children were removed from the home in September 2013. The Mosses were indicted on several counts including kidnapping, assault, child endangerment, and sexual battery.

Date: August 26, 2013
Location: Dorset Township, Ashtabula County, Ohio

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Stoni Ann Blair (b. 2000) and Stephen Gage Berry (b. 2004) were murdered by their mother, Mitchelle Blair. The children, along with their older sister (b. 1998) and younger brother (b. 2007), were homeschooled.

Blair told police she caught Stephen sexually assaulting his brother in August 2012 and that she then scalded him to death. She allegedly then found Stoni sexually assaulting the younger brother in May 2013. She starved and tortured Stoni for a week before strangling her to death. The children’s bodies were placed in a freezer inside the home, where they were discovered in March 2015 by an eviction crew. Blair was charged with child abuse.

Date: March 24, 2015
Location: Detroit, Michigan

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Khyra Ishaq, age 7, was starved to death by her mother, Angela Gordon, and stepfather Junaid Abuhamza. Khyra and her five siblings were homeschooled.

The children were subjected to regular beatings with a cane and punished by being forced to stand outside in the cold. The kitchen was kept locked and the children were starved and forced to vomit. Khyra was withdrawn from school in December 2007 and imprisoned in her bedroom. When she died in May 2008, two of her sisters were also hospitalized for starvation. She weighed only 37 pounds at the time of her death.

Gordon and Abuhamza pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Gordon was sentenced to 15 years in prison and Abuhamza was sentenced to life.

Date: May 17, 2008
Location: Handsworth, Birmingham, West Midlands, UK

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A 10-year-old boy, D.E., was starved, imprisoned, physically abused, and deprived of medical care by his biological mother, Chianna Hendrix, and her wife LaTrecia L. Hendrix. LaTrecia Hendrix’s two biological children, girls ages 12 and 5, were not similarly abused. One of the boy’s relatives reported that he had “been in and out of different schools for various behavioral problems for years before being homeschooled.”

D.E. was kept locked in the basement, where investigators found urine and feces in his bed. His younger sister reported that he was often beaten and locked in the basement as punishment for stealing food. When he was found he was covered with bruises and scratches and was hospitalized for malnourishment. The Hendrixes reported that they deliberately did not seek medical care for the boy for two years. Chianna Hendrix ran a home day care and LaTrecia Hendrix was a public school teaching assistant.

The abuse came to light when the boy ran away from home in March 2015 and was found by the police. The Hendrixes were both charged with child abuse.

Date: March 23, 2015
Location: Independence, Missouri

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Victoria Evans (left, b. 1986), Alloma Gilbert (center, b. 1986), and Christopher Spry (right, b. 1989) were tortured, starved, and imprisoned by their adoptive mother, Eunice Spry. All three were homeschooled starting in 1994. Spry’s other children—two older biological daughters; two adopted daughters, Charlotte and Sarah; and others—were not abused.

Spry took Victoria in as a baby, later officially adopting her, while she took in Alloma and Christopher as foster children in 1992. After Spry moved them to an isolated farm in Eckington, Worcestershire, removed them from school, and changed their names, the abuse began in earnest. Spry beat them, strangled them, and prevented them from getting medical care for their injuries. Sometimes she starved them; at other times she forced them to eat cat food, vomit, and feces. She punished them with extreme physical labor and made them sleep in the barn or locked them in the attic for months. When Victoria was injured after a car accident, Spry forced her to remain wheelchair-bound for years despite her recovery. Spry, a devout Jehovah’s Witness, was convinced that Victoria, Alloma, and Christopher were “Devil children”.

The abuse came to light in December 2004 when Victoria reported it to a friend at church, who helped her escape and tell the police. Spry was arrested in February 2005 and convicted of child abuse in 2007. She was released from prison in 2014.

Date: December 2004
Location: Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, UK

A 17-year-old girl was raped and impregnated by her stepfather, Jondrew Lachaux. Lachaux and the girl’s biological mother, Kellie Phillips, then abandoned the girl and her 3-year-old half-sister Bessie Lachaux, who had special needs, for eight months while they took a road trip with their other five children, ages 9, 8, 7, 4, and 1. All the children were homeschooled.

Lachaux and Phillips abandoned their daughters in August 2014 with inadequate amounts of food and medication for Bessie, who had breathing problems. They forbade the older girl from getting outside help. Phillips reportedly did not know that the 17-year-old was pregnant. The girl gave birth at home without assistance and Bessie later died. On hearing of his daughter’s death, Lachaux came home to hide the body and forced the 17-year-old and her 4-month-old child out on the streets.

The abuse came to light when the girl sought shelter at McCarran International Airport. Airport staff noticed that her baby was sick and called the authorities. The baby was hospitalized for malnutrition and dehydration. Lachaux and Phillips were charged with child abuse.

Date: April 1, 2015
Location: North Las Vegas, Nevada

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A 17-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl were beaten, imprisoned, starved, and denied medical care by their parents, Quincy Hazel and Sabrina Golden-Hazel. Golden-Hazel “told investigators she home school[ed] the children, but police did not find any books in the home.”

The children were kept locked in a closet for days at a time with only a bucket as a bathroom. They were beaten with an extension cord. They were often so hungry they had to eat trash. They had never seen a doctor or dentist and the boy had lost most of his teeth.

The abuse came to light when the boy ran away from home in March 2015. He reported the abuse to police about a month later. The Hazels were charged with child neglect.

Date: April 19, 2015
Location: Riviera Beach, Florida

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Four children, boys ages 8, 4, and 2, and a 5-year-old girl, were imprisoned, starved, and neglected by their parents, John Paul and Danielle Woolley, and their grandparents Gordon Mark and Barbara Jo Woolley. The children were homeschooled, but had never received any medical care or any kind of education.

The children were kept in a locked room in a house covered in feces. When they were found, all four were “non-verbal with poor hygiene and varying degrees of malnutrition and dehydration.” The children were not toilet trained and were unable to eat normal foods. The oldest boy was reportedly autistic.

The abuse was discovered after authorities received an anonymous tip and went to the home to investigate. The children were hospitalized and John Paul’s 29-year-old brother, who had special needs, was also taken into protective custody. Animal control removed a number of cats from the home. All four of the Woolleys were charged with felony neglect.

Date: October 19, 2015
Location: Clinton, Indiana

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Authorities believe Adrian Jones, age 7, was murdered by his father, Michael A. Jones, and his stepmother Heather Jones. Heather Jones homeschooled Adrian and his 7 sisters (ages 11 to 1). Adrian and two girls were Michael’s children from previous relationships, while the other four girls were Michael and Heather’s biological children together.

Former babysitters of the family have reported that the Joneses’ home was filthy, that they witnessed Michael Jones abusing Adrian and his siblings, and that Heather Jones hated Adrian and wanted him dead, depriving of food and forcing him to stand in a stress position for long periods of time. Adrian went missing in September, but the authorities were not alerted until police were called to the home on November 25 for a domestic dispute. When the police returned the following day, they discovered Adrian’s decomposed body in a barn on the property; his body had apparently been fed to the family’s pigs, which Heather purchased in September.

The Joneses were both charged with first-degree murder and child abuse. Michael was also charged with aggravated assault and battery with a deadly weapon; this charge stems from his abuse of Heather. The other children were removed from the home.

Date: November 25, 2015
Location: Kansas City, Kansas

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Janiya Thomas, age 10, was imprisoned, starved, tortured, and murdered by her mother, Keishanna Thomas, in January or February 2015. Janiya last attended school in May 2013; Thomas subsequently pulled her out of school to homeschool her. When Janiya missed her yearly evaluation, Thomas told the school Janiya was staying with relatives out of state. Thomas’s other school-age children, ages 15, 12, and 9, attended public school. She also had a 2-year-old.

Janiya had a medical condition “that affected her digestion and bowel movements”, a condition which had killed her father. Thomas kept Janiya imprisoned naked in a bathroom without food; she weighed only 44 pounds at the time of her death. Thomas also immersed Janiya in bleach, beat her bloody with an extension cord, dunked her head in water, tied her hands and feet, and broke her leg several weeks before her death. After the murder, Thomas placed Janiya’s body in a standalone freezer in her home.

On September 23, Janiya’s 12-year-old brother was caught shoplifting. As punishment, Thomas punched and slapped him; he climbed out a window and reported the abuse to the authorities. When child protective services arrived to investigate, they determined that Janiya was missing. Thomas refused to disclose Janiya’s whereabouts and, on October 15, moved the freezer with Janiya’s body to the home of her aunt and grandmother. She was arrested October 16 and Janiya’s body was located on October 18. Thomas was charged with murder, abuse of a dead body, and child abuse.

Date: January 2015
Location: Bradenton, Florida

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G.N. (a 15-year-old girl), C.N. (an 11-year-old boy), and E.N. (an 11-year-old girl) were beaten, starved, and tortured by their adoptive parents, Jim and Paige Nachtigal. The children were taken out of public school in 2014 to be homeschooled.

G.N. was adopted in 2011, and E.N. and C.N. were adopted in 2012 (the children were not biologically related). All were adopted from Peru, where the Nachtigals were missionaries. The Nachtigals were “active in business and ministry in the Newton community. Jim Nachtigal serve[d] as the CEO of Kansas Christian Home. Paige Nachtigal [was] a former employee of the Newton Area Chamber of Commerce.” The children described being beaten by the Nachtigals using a board and a cane, and the two 11-year-olds were malnourished and had various broken bones. The children had only seen a doctor once or twice since coming to the United States, and C.N. had a serious heart condition for which he had not received treatment.

The abuse came to light after C.N. was reported missing February 6, 2016. When police found him walking barefoot outside, he reported that he was afraid to go home. A February 9 fundraising post on Paige’s blog announces the Nachtigals’ plan to move permanently to Peru as missionaries. The children were removed from the home February 11. The Nachtigals were arrested February 16 and charged with child abuse, child endangerment, and aggravated battery.

Date: February 8, 2016
Location: North Newton, Kansas

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Three girls–V.T. (b. 2004), J.T. (b. 2005), and M.T. (b. 2010)–were starved and imprisoned by their adoptive mother, Echo Marie Terry. Their infant sister, Ma.T., was not reported to be abused. The girls were homeschooled.

Terry became the foster mother of the three girls–biological sisters–in 2011 and formally adopted them in 2013. The abuse began shortly after their adoption, in August 2013, when Terry changed their names and withdrew them from school to homeschool them. Terry imprisoned the girls in their rooms and denied them food for long periods of time. She also forbade them from eating dairy, gluten, corn, or soy, despite the lack of a medical reason for doing so. When they were rescued, the girls were suffering from severe malnutrition and dehydration and had bruises and lacerations. The abuse came to light when V.T. escaped in September 2014 and reported it to authorities.

Terry was arrested April 12, 2016, after being indicted on charges of assault and child endangerment.

Date: September 2014
Location: Anchorage, Alaska

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Caleb Vasquez (b. 1996) and seven of his nine younger half-siblings were starved and beaten by their mother, Odalis Sharp. All the children were homeschooled.

In 2011, Caleb was removed from the home of Odalis Sharp and her husband Tim Sharp after Caleb ran away following a punishment where he was fed only bread and water for two weeks. In 2012 the couple divorced. In January 2016 Odalis drove seven of the children, whom she marketed as the Sharp Family Singers, to perform for and support the 41-day occupation by armed militants at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. They were met there by her 18-year-old daughter Victoria Sharp, who had recently left home, and who witnessed the death of one of the militants. Following these events, social services received three reports that the Sharp children left at home were being abused. In April 2016, five of the children hid Odalis’s guns and ran away from home, where they were met by a neighbor who drove them to the sheriff’s office. They reported emotional and physical abuse involving intense beatings with an implement that caused bruising and bleeding, as well as being forced to eat soap and called names. These five children, plus an infant and a 17-year-old girl who had recently left home to move in with her father, were taken into state custody. (Caleb, Victoria, and one other sibling were legal adults by this point.)

Odalis Sharp was arrested for assaulting an officer and is being held until further charges can be filed.

Date: April 29, 2016
Location: Auburn, Kansas

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Two girls, L.H. (age 17) and L.H. (age 16), were neglected by their parents, Timothy Hogan and Patricia Haugstad-Hogan. The girls were homeschooled.

The girls were forced to sleep on a mattress in the basement of their family home for five years, while their parents lived in a camper in the driveway. The house was filled with garbage, human waste, rotting food, and mold, and had had no heat, power, or water since May 2015. The girls “told police they hadn’t been to a doctor or dentist in years and had never been to public school. They also told authorities that any homeschooling they’d received had been sporadic.” The neglect came to light when the girls ran away from home on Christmas Eve, 2015, and walked five miles to Covenant House, a homeless shelter in downtown Anchorage.

Hogan and Haugstad-Hogan were charged with misdemeanor counts of child neglect and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Date: December 24, 2015
Location: Anchorage, Alaska

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