[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
In shocking news, 15-year-old twins escaped an abusive Texas home and begged neighbors for help freeing other victims.
Early Tuesday morning, a neighborhood in Houston was shaken to its core when twin siblings, a boy and girl, wandered the streets and knocked on doors begging for help. Many homeowners were unsure of the situation and several doorbell monitor videos show homeowners telling the children to move along. You can see some footage from a resident’s doorbell camera (below):
It took a half hour before a woman in a nearby subdivision let the children in and offered to help them, according to KHOU. The unnamed woman said the two children were both barefoot and the boy was shirtless — and when she brought them inside they told her of the horrific conditions they had been living in:
“They were so skinny and so frail. They just looked like they had been through a lot. They told me that their mom kept them locked in the laundry room, naked, zip tied from the ankles and handcuffed from the wrist.”
How awful…
The kind neighbor wrapped the twins in blankets and fed them as she contacted police. When law enforcement arrived, the kids gave even more detail on their home life. They said they were forced to drink their own urine and live among their own feces in the laundry room. Officers noted how frail the children were, their bones were sticking out and they were covered in bruises and cuts, and the boy had at least one fracture that had been healed up. As the woman who let them in described the situation more to the outlet, she became emotional:
“They would only feed them a sandwich, only if they were quiet the whole day, if they made any type of noise they wouldn’t be fed. How a mother could do this to her kids and… I feel like my tears are out of frustration, anger and sadness.”
Sadly, the situation was far from over. The two escaped children told law enforcement of five other siblings, aged 7-14, that were still in the home and needed help. Officers went to their family’s home and looked for the parents and other children, but it was too late, and the parents were on the run with the remaining kids. At this point an AMBER Alert was issued to find them. Meanwhile, the twins were put in the care of Child Protective Services and transported to the hospital according to ABC 13. So, so sad…
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Luckily, hours later, police in Louisiana tracked down the parents to Baton Rouge where they arrested 40-year-old Zaikiya Duncan and her 27-year-old boyfriend Jova Terrell at a traffic stop around 2 p.m. that day. They found one of the missing children in the couple’s car, and it was said the others had been left with relatives throughout the state. They were seriously dropping off these poor kids like pebbles to make a trail back home! Sickening…
Both of the adults are to be charged with injury to a child and reportedly were taken back to Houston on Tuesday, according to KHOU. They remain in custody and all seven children were successfully rescued and placed in CPS. An 18-year-old brother was also known to be living in the family home, but his whereabouts are unknown at this time and police aren’t sure if he was one of the siblings to be dropped off at a relative’s home. So terrible. And this isn’t their mother’s first run-in with child abuse charges, either…
According to legal documents uncovered by the outlet, Zaikiya had her then 5-year-old taken from school in 2012 and brought to the hospital to be treated for severe burns to his feet, genitals, and other body parts due to being burned by hot water. A 20-month-old baby was discovered in her home at the time, swaddled in clothing with his hands bound — the only other person at home was his 4-year-old brother. Police also said the mother admitted to “disciplining” one of her children by making him stay in a push up position for up to an hour causing his hands to swell and forcing him to sleep on the floor of a closet that was barricaded so he couldn’t “escape” and “steal food from the kitchen”. She was charged at the time, but her kids were returned to her not long after.
Absolutely insane.
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As of Friday, court records obtained by NBC are sharing more horrific abuse the twins and their siblings had to endure at the hands of their parents. The Harris County Constable’s Office said the children told officers they were forced to drink bleach or have oven cleaner sprayed in their mouths if they “talked too much”, as well as have bleach poured on their skin which caused chemical burns. They also allege they were beaten with extension cords, curtain rods, and metal poles. The twins were also starved, only being fed mustard, relish, or bologna sandwiches one to three times per week — and the only water they could drink was from the washing machine valve. They state they were forced to wash up with a mop bucket of dirty water and don’t remember the last time they showered.
In fact, the boy says the only way they were able to escape was when he found a key to their handcuffs and hid it in his mouth until their parents were asleep. They were quite literally escaping a prison that was supposed to be their home, it’s so awful anyone could treat innocent children so cruelly…
Our hearts are with all of these poor siblings right now. May they find the healing and love they deserve.
[Image via Fox 26 Houston/YouTube/Ted Heap, Harris County Constable Precinct 5/Facebook]
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