Police : Parents forced teens to stay inside closet-sized room
OLD APPLETON, MO - A Missouri couple is arrested after allegedly holding their teenage daughter captive in their own home.
The teen was reportedly forced to stay inside a closet-size room for days. FOX's Katherine James Bradley Hughes and Rebekah Elizabeth Hughes are charged with child abuse.
The couple's 15-year-old daughter says after she returned home from a mental health facility in St. Louis Thursday night her parents locked her in an eight-by-ten room.
Hessel spoke with detectives on this disturbing case.
She tells police she was only given food and bathroom breaks when her parents allowed and in the meantime, she was given a blue bunny ice cream container to use the restroom.
The victim says she was given one sheet, one blanket and a piece of foam to use on top of some plywood.
"They carpeted the walls and screwed the windows shut from the inside and put a lock on the door where it could only be opened from the outside and not the inside," Cape Girardeau Sheriff's Department David James said.
On Saturday, while her parents were away at a birthday party, the girl jumped through one window that was not screwed shut.
She ran to a neighbor's home who happened to be an off-duty sheriff's deputy. Police searched the home and found the room exactly how the girl had described.
"The father returned home and he was immediately placed under arrest. At that point the mother had left the area and she was apprehended by highway patrol in Matthews, Missouri at a truck stop," James said.
In this small town of 83 people neighbors never expected anything like this.
KTVI asked police how long it would take someone to construct a room like the one the girl was held in. They said it could take a few weeks or for someone who knew what they were doing just a few hours.