Escape of Texas twins leads to arrest of abusive mother and boyfriend
After making a break for it to get away from their abusive mother and her boyfriend in Texas, handcuffed and barefoot 16-year-old twins were turned away repeatedly by neighbors as they went door-to-door looking for assistance, before a Good Samaritan let them inside and summoned help, according to authorities.
That woman’s call to authorities prompted an interstate search for the twins’ siblings, which ended in Louisiana’s capital city and led to the arrests of the allegedly abusive couple at the center of a case that has caused shock across two US states.
The accused mother, Zaikiya Duncan, and her boyfriend, Jova Terrell, face charges of injury to a child, which in some cases can carry a minimum of five years in prison.
The couple appeared in a Baton Rouge courtroom on Thursday and said they would not contest being transferred to the custody of authorities in Houston who are investigating them.
Meanwhile, seven underage children involved for now have been turned over to the care of child protective services officials, according to reporting from multiple media outlets, including television news stations KHOU in Houston and WBRZ in Baton Rouge.
Police became aware of the children’s plight after a 16-year-old boy and his twin sister ran door to door through their neighborhood in Cypress, Texas, just northwest of Houston, for roughly 30min pleading for someone to help them.
Doorbell camera footage reportedly showed the boy and his sister, both barefoot and shivering, while several neighbors – uncertain about what to do – told them to move along.
The boy was shirtless, and the girl wore a plastic grocery bag as a top, according to court documents obtained by the Guardian.
Eventually, a woman opened her door, let them inside, wrapped them in blankets and called a local constable’s office.
“They were so skinny and so frail,”
that woman told KHOU. She also said that the children had told her about how they had fled from a home where their mother kept them locked in a laundry room while they were naked except for zip-ties around their ankles and handcuffs on their wrists.
In interviews with investigators who arrived later, the children described how their caretakers would make them use a mop bucket with dirty water to shower and to urinate and defecate on themselves when they needed to go to the bathroom. They said they had been subjected to other brutal physical abuse as well.
The twins were taken to a hospital, where they remained Thursday.
A medical examination later revealed signs that the children had been starved and the boy had at least one healed bone fracture consistent with physical abuse.
The woman who took the twins in added that the children also recounted how sometimes their only meal in a day would be a sandwich.
“If they made any type of noise, they wouldn’t be fed,” said the woman, adding that their words provoked from her tears of “frustration, anger and sadness”.
Investigators went to the home from which the twins had run away, but Duncan, 40, and Terrell, 27, were gone. So were five other children between the ages of seven and 14.
Authorities issued what is known as an Amber Alert asking the public for help in finding the minors, broadcasting their information in the media and on electronic roadway signs.
Several hours later, Louisiana state police troopers saw Duncan’s car just off the campus of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. They approached and arrested the couple.
Only an 18-year-old was with them. Troopers later found the rest of the children at the home of a relative where Terrell and Duncan had dropped them off.
This week was not the first time Duncan had been accused of abusing a child. About a decade ago, Baton Rouge police arrested her on suspicion of child cruelty after one of her children showed up injured at an emergency room, court records show.
Duncan eventually pleaded guilty, agreed to take a parenting class and served probation until 2020, as WBRZ first reported.
In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800; adult survivors can seek help at Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International