24: Couple Locked Their Adopted Son Inside 8x8 Room For 4 Years

2023/6/22

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Annie Elise introduces a case of a couple accused of keeping their adopted son in a small room in their garage for over four years.

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Hey everybody, welcome back to an all-new bonus episode of Serialistly with me, your true crime bestie, Annie, and I am breaking down another crazy case for you today. Before we jump in though, please just take a quick second, double check that you are subscribed and following the podcast, check whatever podcast app you're using to listen to this on, it should be in like the corner, but

Make sure you're following, that way you'll be notified every time I drop a new episode or a bonus episode off the cuff. And then if you have an extra 30 seconds and you want to leave a rating or a review, I would greatly appreciate it. So the case we're talking about today, it's really not what it seems.

Possibly. Let me just give a little disclaimer there. It's possibly not what it seems because the initial report about this case and the details seemed like it was pretty much open and shut. The writing was on the wall, everybody knew. But then, as I started to dig more and more and more, it looks like maybe it's something else. And again, I want to just use the disclaimer. Possibly.

so we are going to talk about it. it all started on friday evening in january 28th and it was when detectives responded to follow up on a report of a missing runaway 14 year old boy. and what they found when they followed up on this potential teenage runaway would not only haunt the detectives, but it also would raise tons of questions, even more excuses, and some allegations of truly horrific horrific behavior.

So let's get right into it. Tracy Farreter and Timothy Farreter are both 46 years old, a married couple, and they have four children. They have two daughters, one who is 13 years old, one who is 16 years old. They have a two-year-old son, and they have an adopted 14-year-old teenage son. Now, I believe a couple of the other children, in addition to the 14-year-old, are adopted as well, but it's unclear who is adopted versus biological.

This family was very active on social media, would post Christmas cards, would post family portraits, and Tracy used to work as a school aide at the local Catholic school. So that Friday on January 28th, Tracy had told police that her 14-year-old adopted son had several behavioral disorders and that he was in trouble at school just the day before, leading her to think that he had run away from home.

It was at this point in the conversation that another police officer on the scene told this detective that he had actually also been out to that home just a month earlier in December of 2021. And he says that the reason that he was at this home back in December was because of a phone call that he had received. He received a phone call by somebody who was going by the name of Jack and had said that he was hired to come to this home and to build an office in the garage of their home.

Jack told them that he would absolutely do the job. However, after getting directions from the couple, he said that he found the job very strange. Jack said that the room was just an 8x8 space, and he says, and I quote, that it had its

own door and its own ceiling. It had a deadbolt lock and a knob, but only on the outside. There was no knob inside. So if somebody was inside this office, they would not be able to exit unless somebody opened the door for them from the outside. And Jack also added that they requested that the space have electricity, have a window AC unit put into it, and also installing a camera onto the ceiling.

and they told him that he only had two days to complete this job. So he had called this in saying it seemed very, very odd. So the details of the follow-up here are a little unclear, but apparently the officer had gone. Nothing was really afoot or strange, and so now, fast forward one month, the teenage son is suspected to have run away, and this information is beginning to resurface.

The police take the statement from Tracy, the mother, and nothing really follows up. They assume that this boy, who reportedly has behavioral issues, has run away, and they're hopeful that he will return home, and in the meantime, they're going to be looking for him. So two days later, on Sunday, January 30th, two police officers come back to the house, and they knock on the door because they wanted to check and see if the boy had returned.

And at that point, things began to get very, very weird. As they were knocking on the door, nobody was answering. So they call Tracy and ask her if they have permission to enter the home to check to see if her son has returned, and she refused. She said she wasn't comfortable with them going into her home while she's not there, and that she would let them know if she hears of anything, but that she refused to let them inside the house. So then later that evening, around 10 p.m., two additional officers end up going back to the house.

And at that point, Tracy says that her son still had not returned, but she again denies them entry into the home.

Finally, after a very long conversation with these officers and them persuading her to allow them to come in and make sure that everything's okay, she allows one of them in. And this officer says that he immediately went to a room that was inside the home to the right of the front door. Inside that room was a small crib and on the floor was a small plaid blanket and a pillow.

And Tracy told this officer that her 14-year-old adopted son, who is now missing and suspected to have run away, shared that room with his 2-year-old brother and that he oftentimes slept on the floor while the 2-year-old slept in the crib.

And the inside of this room was vibrant and colorful. There were tons of toys everywhere, although all of the toys seemed to align with the age range of the toddler rather than things that a 14 year old boy may be playing with. So when the detective asked Tracy, "Oh, this is great, but where are the belongings that belong with the 14 year old boy? If they share a room, where's all his stuff?"

She says that she'll show him where he keeps his stuff, and she leads him through the kitchen to another room and advises that that's where this other son's belongings are. It's at that point that Tracy brings the officer to the garage and to this additional structure, and the structure is described as being very small with a plain white door.

The mother says that they were in the process of converting this structure into an office, but that they could still go ahead and go on inside and look and take a look around. So they enter this structure to investigate, but what they find wasn't an office, and it wasn't anything like the mother, Tracy, was trying to describe to them.

The structure had a doorknob and a deadbolt both locking from the outside as well as a light switch only on the exterior. This meant that whoever was inside the room or the office

wasn't able to control the lighting or the room being locked or not if they were inside. It was being controlled by somebody on the outside. And this aligns with that concern from that man who was requested to build this structure and who had called this in back in December. Inside the structure was a plain box spring with a mattress on top of it. And on top of the mattress was a gray sheet with a pillow.

Straight back in the room was a small desk with chairs and school books on top of that desk. And above that mattress was a ring doorbell camera that was mounted to the ceiling pointing directly down at the mattress.

And as for the aesthetic of the room, like that other vibrant room that the two-year-old slept in, this one was completely bare. It was just plain concrete and drywall. The floor was also bare with just a big part of it covered by an indoor/outdoor rug. Near the bed was an orange Home Depot bucket that appeared to have human feces in it.

While showing detectives this space, Tracy had tons of excuses and different explanations as to what the space was used for. She explains that at first it was a structure that was built for that office, possibly for her husband to use, but then when she was questioned about this exterior lock, this lock that you have to do from the outside that you can't control at all from the inside,

She stated that the room was used for storage and she said it was family storage so they would lock things up and that it was a space used by all of the children.

But there wasn't storage in there. There were no boxes. There was a bed and a camera mounted to the ceiling, which would raise the alarm for anybody. So when the detective asks Tracy, okay, well then why is there a box spring and why is there a mattress? She says that occasionally that space was sometimes used by her 14-year-old adopted son.

Hey guys, it's me, your true crime bestie Annie, and I am so excited to share with you that Serialistly is officially hitting the road and coming to you live in a city near you. That's right, we are going on tour. We've got shows planned in Orange County, California, San Diego, California, Salt Lake City, Denver, Colorado, Phoenix, Arizona, and

and more. We're going to be discussing all new exclusive cases. I have some surprise guests planned, but I can't tell you who. It's a surprise. At the end, we'll do a meet and greet so I finally get to meet so many of you. We've got exclusive merch and just so much more. It is going to be a show that you definitely do not want to miss. But space and tickets are very, very limited. So grab your friends, grab your co-workers, or come on your own and hang with me while we talk all things true crime together.

All of the information including dates, cities, and links to purchase tickets can be found at AnnieElise.com and then just toggle over to the events page. So grab them now before they're gone. I can't wait to meet all of you and I will see you on the stage. Okay, so now it's all beginning to come together here. The camera, the mattress, the bucket on the floor. Somebody was living in this tiny room that was just 8x8.

But at that point, all they had was suspicion. They didn't have this 14-year-old boy there to corroborate what they believed may have been happening. They didn't have any confession to any sort of guilt. They assumed this teenage boy had still run away. So there wasn't much that they could do. But they definitely did begin to investigate.

Officers eventually found the 14-year-old boy three days later at Independence Middle School, and they found him by using a drone over the school to actually pinpoint his exact location after spotting him on security footage. And that's when this teen unloaded to the police and said that his parents locked him in that structure every single day. He also says that at one point he was locked inside that for up to 18 hours.

When the officer asked him, why did you run away? He says because he felt like nobody loves him. And he says that he also did not feel safe at home. He said that there was spankings that would take place, that there was physical abuse that would take place. And then he made a public plea to the officers for them to arrest him because he said he would rather be in prison than go back to that home.

After getting a search warrant for that ring camera that was mounted to the ceiling and aimed directly down at the mattress, they discovered what really went on inside this horrific dungeon of sorts. They uncovered thousands of videos that showed the teen being locked inside that structure every single day. It was all caught on camera.

And in the affidavit, it says, "Each day the boy was placed in the room, you could hear the door close and the deadbolt lock. In several videos, you could hear and see both Tracy and Timothy yelling at the boy. In one video in particular, the boy was locked in his room after being found to have stolen chocolate and cookies from the kitchen, despite being told that he wasn't allowed to have them." Uh, hello, he was probably hungry.

This behavior resulted in the boy having the covers removed from his mattress, his mattress picked up and tossed against the wall, and Timothy grabbing the boy against the arm and yelling at him. Each morning when Timothy greets the boy, he asks him, is it dirty? And points to that Orange Home Depot bucket. And that's the bucket that this boy uses to relieve himself. And it's kept in the corner of this room.

And in one of those videos, the boy advises that yes, the bucket is dirty. And Timothy then yells at him, telling him to clean it. And you can see this young 14-year-old go off camera to clean out what he has, you know, his bodily fluids that he had put into this bucket.

Investigators quickly determined that this young teenage boy was forced to live inside this garage, this tiny, tiny structure since 2017. Meals were brought in and out to him while he was locked in that room and he was provided that orange bucket as a bathroom to use. A Jupiter couple accused of forcing their adopted son to live like a prisoner locked in a small room in the garage. Police say it went on for more than four years.

Once the officer picked this young boy up and started questioning him, he shared a lot more information as to what went on in that home, what went on in that room, and what this pattern of alleged abuse really was. So this was all included in the original report. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna pull it up on the screen for you. And I'm gonna read with you guys what was said because it's the questions and the answers from the detective and the boy. We start here.

The detective wrote, I asked the boy to describe a typical day for him and he stated that in the morning he is woken up by someone because his door is locked. The boy advised that somebody would wake him up in the morning, tell him to go to the bathroom and then he would go back to his room. He said that somebody would lock the door and usually turn the lights off.

The boy advised he would be in his room until somebody would return from dropping off the siblings at school. Because remember, there were three other siblings who lived inside the home. The boy advised that once his mother was home, she would feed him breakfast consisting of a banana and a piece of bread and peanut butter. The boy stated that after he was finished eating, somebody would come back into the room and he would get dressed and then he would go to school.

After school, the boy stated that somebody would pick him up and his siblings up and return home and he would go back into that room. I asked the boy to describe his room and he stated it was 8x8. The boy further stated that the room had a lockable doorknob and deadbolt that both locked from the outside and there was a light switch on the outside of the room as well. The boy stated that someone would always lock him in there, stating usually the bottom knob was the one that was locked.

The boy stated that he has to stay in that room when somebody is home or when they want him to be in there. When asked how often he is in the room, he says a lot. I asked him if he was home, if he would be playing with his friends or family and he said no and that he would be reading books in his room and stated he was not allowed to go anywhere else in the house. I asked the boy if he would like to be in his current room or a different room and he stated a different room.

Now I think that this may have been a typo. I think he was asking him if he felt unsafe and he stated he did because this doesn't quite make sense.

When asked to describe how his dad gets aggressive, he stated that once somebody slammed him against a wall by his neck and struck him in the face with an open hand. When asked how often somebody has been physical with him, he stated that it happened a lot when they lived in Arizona. I asked the boy to describe the discipline he receives and he stated that somebody, male, gets profane and angry and that he sometimes spits in my face.

The boy further stated his discipline consists of spanking with a belt. I asked the boy if he ever sleeps in the room with the sibling, and he says he does not. Now, this is a piece of information because remember, Tracy, the mother, originally said he shared that room with his two-year-old brother, and he's saying he never sleeps in there.

The boy advised the longest he could remember being locked inside the room was approximately 16 to 18 hours. The boy advised somebody to provide him with a bucket to go to the bathroom in, stating that he has used the bucket several times in the past. The boy advised when he uses the bucket, he is made to dump it out in the backyard of the residence and then clean it out. The boy stated he eats most of his meals in his bedroom, which consists of leftovers after the family has already eaten.

The boy advised if he is not in his room or at school, he is outside in the yard doing yard work that somebody makes him do until being locked back inside the room. The boy stated somebody is very physically abusive to him and he is fearful somebody may knock him out. The boy advised that he had a room in Arizona similar to the room he is in now, stating that the room is approximately 8 by 10 feet.

Near the end of the interview, the boy advised that he did not want to return to his family and he pled with him stating that he would rather be in prison than back home. The boy further stated that he had thoughts about taking his own life. So based on these alarming and heartbreaking statements made by this 14-year-old boy to the officers, he was placed under a law enforcement Baker Act and he was transported to the hospital for evaluation to make sure that he was not only physically okay but mentally okay as well.

But these officers still had to corroborate this kid's story. Even though it seemed like the evidence was all there and the writing was on the wall, they had to vet this information and make sure that he was being truthful. Because remember, it was alleged that he had behavioral issues, that he got in trouble a lot, that he ran away. So they needed to make sure that...

that this was in fact the real situation. The next day, on Tuesday, February 1st, authorities removed all of the siblings from the family home and removed the two girls from school as they were attending school that day. They then decided to interview the two girls. One sister confirmed the allegations that her 14-year-old brother had made, stating that his room is in the garage and he gets put into the room when he is either misbehaving or in trouble, and stated that he gets in trouble a lot.

She also says that the door has a lock on it from the outside and that if he is in his room, the door is always locked.

When discussing the room, this sister begins getting extremely emotional and she starts crying and saying that she wanted to play with her brother and that she doesn't know why he's always locked inside this room. She then says that she wants to do the right thing for her brother and she mentions the camera that's in that room as well. She then said that the punishment this boy receives are very different than the punishments the other siblings receive, saying that when they get in trouble, they may get their phone taken away.

and other light restrictions. However, when he gets in trouble, he gets locked inside this room and he has to either do yard work or write sentences as a form of punishment. The sister then discloses that she has seen somebody grab her brother by the neck, but that other than that, she hasn't seen any other physical abuse take place. However, she has heard it through the walls.

She says that somebody did tell her that her brother had been hit in the past with a belt and a jump rope. She says that her brother is locked in that room all the time for several hours, that he uses that bucket to use the bathroom, and that sometimes he's even had to use the bathroom just by going on the floor. Then the other sister has her interview, and according to the report, she confirms all of the statements her brother made and all of the statements that her sister made.

But this sister says that she doesn't know exactly what that room looks like because she hasn't seen it for a while. But she says she does know that that room is in the garage and she knows that there is a lock on the outside because it is meant to keep her brother locked inside. She says that she misses her brother and wishes that he wasn't in trouble all the time because she missed him and wanted to play with him.

Then she states that that weekend in which he was missing, when they suspected he possibly ran away, she says that somebody took her and somebody else, I'm assuming a sibling, to a softball tournament in Tampa, clearly not concerned about the whereabouts of their 14-year-old son.

A few days pass from the interviews and last Friday, February 4th, this 14-year-old is released from the hospital that he had been at since the officers approached him and found him at that middle school. He was then taken into the child protection team for another interview to see is his story still aligning, can we get any other information out of him,

you know, assessing the situation and his answers had not changed. They had not changed at all since his original interview with that investigator. And during this new interview, he confirmed that he was made to stay locked in that room for several hours at a time. He confirmed that it was an eight by eight. He confirmed that there was that ring doorbell mounted to the ceiling to watch his every move. He confirmed that he had to use the bathroom in there and confirmed that there was that lock on the outside.

He was also asked about the discipline during that interview, and he says that he has received several spankings before, both with a leather belt and with a jump rope. And he stated that the spankings would take place in that room while he would be naked and bent over the bed. And this is just heartbreaking, but he says in one of those instances when he was spanked, it was so hard and it hurt so bad that he fell off the bed.

With all of this information, obviously, detectives concluded that based on the testimony, based on the evidence they had, there was absolutely probable cause to believe that the Ferreters, these two monster parents, willfully tortured, maliciously punished, or willfully and unlawfully caged this young boy, who is a child.

So the next day, on February 7th, both parents were arrested for aggravated child abuse and false imprisonment. Now this is where you think this story would end. Case closed. It is not even close to being the end of it, guys. We are just getting started, and you're going to see why here in just one second.

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And cruelty, aggravated child abuse, and false imprisonment. Those are the charges you're arrested for. Obviously, your lawyer is here with you. Let me hear from the state. Count one, the cruelty towards a child, I'm asking for $100,000. Count two, I'm asking the court to find probable cause for kidnapping, not false imprisonment.

Florida Statute 787.01.1a.3 says it is kidnapping if the act is done to inflict bodily or to terrorize the victim. Clearly this is terrorizing the minor RF. I'm asking you to hold her no bond under the kidnapping on count two.

Further, I'm asking for no contact with the co-defendant, her husband. No contact with the victim minor, RF. No contact with their other three minors, PF, FF, NF. And no contact with anyone under the age of 18. I think they're a danger to all minors in the community.

All right, I mean obviously Jupiter Police Department sought an arrest warrant for aggravated child abuse and false imprisonment. However, Judge, I find that people do not understand the kidnapping statute at all. Are you suggesting that Detective Jupiter didn't understand the statute? I'm suggesting that even attorneys don't understand the kidnapping statute. Anyway, counsel, good morning. So, by the way, I'll let you know I read your stuff. Thank you.

The flip side to that though, isn't that sort of a double-edged sword? Because there could be other reasons why the child is acting out in that manner, such as the treatment. But anyway. - Nellie King on behalf of Tracy Faraday. Your Honor, first to quickly respond to the state

I was in contact with the detectives. They were working with representatives from the state attorney's office. So I think the charges were well contemplated before this morning as between her office as well as Jupiter Police Department. Mr. Keaton, could we start by the way of state, is there any history you have? No, Judge, I did not show one. No criminal history?

OK. Your Honor, one of the reasons, to your point, that I provided the materials to the court, which is unusual, you can imagine, for a first appearance that we have the ability to communicate before the arrest, is that the police did not contact my office or these folks in order to learn the information that was offered to them about this young man.

And so that's-- and I did it in a private fashion, knowing that he's a minor. But from the materials you provided, this is not a simple story here. And I think because of the presumption of innocence, the lack of a prior record, the charges, even as they stand,

If the child is over the age of 13, it's a third degree felony on the false imprisonment charges. So they, the child is 14 years, five months today. They have only been in Florida. They lived in Arizona for four years previously.

he's over the age of 13, which makes it a third degree felony on the false imprisonment charge. For that reason, I'm asking for the standard bond on both of these counts, which would be $5,000 on the false imprisonment charge and $15,000 on a first degree felony, as I asked it. So $20,000 for both. As to, and this is important, Judge, I have the materials if you need this, there are dependency and shelter proceedings ongoing, and I think

In fact, there was a hearing this morning, according to Mr. Jamison, and that's why I'm requesting that any issue having to do with contact with these children be dealt with by Judge Bell in that pursuit. How long have those proceedings been going? Since this arrest or since these allegations first came to light or what? Since the allegations first came to light, I think the 28th of January or 29th of January, no later than February 1st, though, as far as I know. And I have the order here.

You know, there was a hearing yesterday or a meeting yesterday, another one this morning. There are all sorts of lawyers involved in that end. So I just don't want it to be complicated as far as if there's no contact orders here. For example, their youngest child is two years old. All the children are being sheltered currently? They are all being sheltered.

Actually, according to Mr. Jamison this morning, they're still trying to determine. They are either friends or relatives outside of Tracy and Tim. The visits are supervised at this time. I also wanted to point out for the court that several of the Ferriters community members

neighbors and things like that from schools who know all four of these children and have seen them, including the complainant in this case recently, out at a food truck event playing soccer with their children. So I think there's a lot in dispute as far as what this young man is saying, and the court is aware kind of of the history of reactive attachment disorder and other sociopathy.

So as far, I'm asking that the court defer to the dependency shelter proceedings. I have the order if you wish to see it, and I gave the court the case number. It is, you know, that is going to be going on for months as far as where these children will be and how visitation is managed. I'm assuming, I'll let you talk about it. I'm assuming you were in touch with the detectives.

Yes. And the state attorney. Yes, well I attempted the state attorney several times. That's why out of frustration I sent the materials to you and copying the state because they were not kind of responding to my entreaties. But I will tell you this judge that the

The lawyer for the shelter proceedings is in close contact with my office because obviously the children are not going back into this home, at least under strict restrictions from that point of view.

All right, Ms. Duggan, final word? We now have a criminal case. I'm asking the court for no contact for all these children. It's different than a civil case. And I think that as a victim of a crime, there should be a criminal no contact order in place. There should be no contact with these people under any supervision or any manner whatsoever. All right, ma'am, you were employed? Your husband worked?

What does he do? Okay. And how long have you lived here in the county? Okay, you moved here from Arizona. How long have you been in Arizona? You own your home here, right? You own it, okay. Your honors, they were here I believe 16 years.

they were here in jupiter 16 years then arizona four and came back and um to their credit judge um when i was talking with the detective yesterday i was asking just for the time to be able to get through the hearings and visitation with the youngest child particularly because of his tender age so they've been very responsive to to everybody as far as showing up so i'm assuming uh judge bell has dealt with the children and dcf is involved with the case

Obviously, rather than just me entering a blind no contact order, I'm just gonna defer to the Department of Children and Families and Judge Bell and whatever orders they have in place regarding the children, that's the orders you have to follow, okay ma'am? All right. Can you make an exception for the victim of this crime? Well, I assume Judge Bell's doing it and I assume DCF is doing it. How many people, I don't wanna step on anybody's toes. They've been working with the kids. I trust Judge Bell.

So I assume she's handling that. I just don't want conflicting orders flying all over the place. There's a guardian ad line as well. It is, everybody has their hand in this and it's ongoing. All right, other than that, I am gonna set bond at 25,000 each count and order contact for DCF and for Judge Bell in the dependency case. Other than that, good luck to you, ma'am. All right. I ask for no contact with COVID veterans. Right.

What criminal history does Mr. Ferdinand? Judge, I didn't show a criminal history. I'd like for the record to make my same argument that count two should be kidnapping under 787.011A subsection three where the crime is done to inflict bodily harm or terrorize the victim. Where this victim, the minor has clearly been terrorized for a number of years. All right, once again, I'd rather go through it. Sir, I don't know if you could hear what happened with your wife.

Okay, so what I've ordered is that any contact with the children, actually I'm ordering essentially no contact except as authorized by DCF or Judge Bell in the dependency case, okay? Whatever's going on with the kids, those orders stay in place. Make sure you abide by them, all right? Other than that, I'm going to set bond at $25,000 per count.

Good luck to you, sir. Thank you, Your Honor. All right, take care. Thanks, Judge. All right. Good luck. Thank you. So this last Wednesday, just a couple of days ago, both parents ended up bonding out of the jail at approximately 7.30 p.m., and their next hearing is set for March 10th. Those three other children had been removed from the home from the Florida DCF, and the couple is actually not allowed to contact any of the children at all unless it's authorized by DCF.

All of the information, including dates, cities, and links to purchase tickets, can be found at AnnieElise.com and then just toggle over to the events page. So grab them now before they're gone. I can't wait to meet all of you, and I will see you on the stage. Now usually with these cases, we've seen it with the Turpin case, we've seen it with several cases, right? But usually with these cases, when the parents or whoever is holding this person or these children in a dumpster,

a dungeon or locking them in a room, generally, we never hear from them as far as what their reasoning was, as far as any motive behind it, because there really is no reason. There's no excuse that anybody can give to make it okay. And very rarely do we ever hear one.

Usually it is, you know, they get arrested, case closed, they're locked up, they don't talk, and that's that. Maybe they'll strike a deal, maybe they won't. But that's not what's happening here because the defense attorney for these parents is speaking out and she is speaking out a ton. She is sharing all of the details as to the why in this case, why he was isolated in that 8x8, why he was locked inside. And she's saying that the root of this,

this entire thing and why the parents did that and justifying why the parents did that was to protect their other children from their 14 year old brother and not just to protect their children but to protect the world the outside world from this 14 year old boy

the parents defense attorney nelly king writes an extensive and detailed letter outlining the details that she now requested be added into the file and taken into consideration by the prosecution and the state while they gather everything and look at all the evidence and a lot of this letter has been redacted because it can get vulgar because there are minors included but i'm going to read you a lot of the pieces of this letter and we're going to go through some of the key paragraphs that she outlines

So part of this letter includes her saying that there are a number of issues you don't know about involving this boy, particularly since the family moved back to Jupiter after living in Arizona for four years. She goes on to describe an unruly and out of control and a very destructive and cruel child. And she says that he has been that way since he was just two years old.

She says there are numerous school records, photos, psychological and medical files, and police reports which all serve to frame his account in an entirely different light.

And apparently this documentation comes from multiple agencies across two different states. She says that there are long standing dangerous and disturbing behavior that the boy has exhibited in multiple schools, neighborhoods and homes towards other children and adults over the course of a number of years.

There is documentation from teachers, school administration, law enforcement, doctors, neighbors, and unknowing citizens who just happened to cross paths with this 14-year-old boy. She says his behaviors and manipulation will not end by just being taken away and that placement decisions of the other children should be thoroughly considered before any of these minor children are housed with this 14-year-old boy.

She goes on to say that other people's safety, including the siblings, has been jeopardized by his attacks, a number of which have resulted in a serious injury. And in one instance, when he was quite a bit younger, he allegedly pushed somebody so hard that she fractured her shoulder, and this is suspected to be one of his sisters.

then saying he got more violent and even more vulgar, stating that just a few years later after fracturing her shoulder, he attacked again another female, punching her in the face into a marble window seal.

saying that she had to go to the hospital for her injuries. She goes on to say that as the years went by, this 14-year-old boy, much younger at the time, tortured animals, yelled in class that the Holocaust was a good thing, and that all immigrants are drug dealers, saying that the boy searched disturbing ways for girls to die using school electronics.

saying that he stole anything he could get his hands on, including numerous school tablets, money from other students' houses he entered after using a fake name, and even money from the collection plate at church. She then wrote that as he got older, his schemes progressively got more disturbing, more violent. He dropped a heavy wooden door on somebody, an early indication that his aggression would next turn towards somebody else.

Then she says by the time that the sibling was two years old, he was thrown off a bike by this 14-year-old brother, causing facial injuries and more fear that this boy would continue to hurt schoolmates and strangers.

She says that there have been referrals from school teachers, and there's too many to count from multiple school districts. That he has been sanctioned by school administrators for punching, cursing, stealing, destroying school property, putting a classmate against a wall while jabbing his finger and thumb into the boy's windpipe, breaking and entering into school buildings, and lying constantly when he was caught by teachers for his misconduct.

Most recently, at the Independence Middle School, where police found, the boys started as a new school by impersonating being a school evaluator, secretly recording the other students stealing phones, credit cards, and cash.

She says that the boy brings knives and weapons to school, draws pictures of guns and artillery fire, roams the house terrorizing others at night, and fantasizes about killing people. School authorities apparently recognized this at a very young age, and it has been thoroughly documented, saying that his targets have been many.

This defense attorney Nellie then ends this letter by offering to share material with law enforcement and prosecutors to substantiate the patterns that she's outlining in this letter. She also was offering to share efforts to help the boy and to protect his family.

Now, this just kind of flips this entire case right on its head, right? Because first of all, regardless if he is truly a sociopath or psychopath, who knows, who knows if all of this is documented and true. But even so, what they put him through is absolutely not the answer. You need to find a solution for the problem rather than trying to contain the problem. And

It said that they have tried to get him psychological help, medical help, and that it just doesn't work, that he refuses, that it goes right back to square one. So while I can appreciate and understand a parent's concern for their other children's safety and the safety of others, if this is in fact true, and if he is a violent person, locking him in a room isn't going to solve that. I would imagine that's just going to make this problem even bigger.

that by locking him up, he is going to become unruly, become angry, and become, I would imagine, pretty vengeful. I'd imagine there would have been options for inpatient treatment or medication. Again, so many of these details are just beginning to surface that I'm sure that in the coming days we'll get a much clearer indication of all of the avenues that were truly explored.

However, even again, going back to it, even if he were the violent one and if all of these allegations are true, not only does it not justify the treatment from the parents here, but it also doesn't align with his outcry of the abuse. Being thrown against the wall by his father, being spanked so hard that he fell off the bed, being forced to do housework,

If he wasn't locked inside the room, being forced to use the bucket, that is much more in line with systematic abuse. So, and clearly we see that the other siblings weren't dealing with any of that. So it wasn't the parents who are just these evil masterminds and executing all of this on all of their children, like we saw in the Turpin case, which if you aren't familiar with that, it's a few videos down. It's called the House of Horrors and it truly is the House of Horrors.

But that's not what this was like. It was their efforts were targeted at a singular person. Now again, we don't know about the other siblings and who was a biological and who was adopted. So could this have been a target because he was the adopted son and not a biological son? Or could this have been the target because he was a troublemaker and they thought that they needed to punish him or give him tough love? Again, never excusable. Not at all. But I'm just trying to understand here a little bit

what the reasoning is here and why he was the one locked away. So again, typically we don't hear many things like this in these cases because usually, again, it's indefensible. And so for somebody to come back with any sort of defense, they just don't because there's no reasoning. But here they are coming back with a mountain of evidence.

reasoning and excuses. And ultimately the defense attorney's job is to of course get this in front of the jury, either get the charges dismissed or get them acquitted and protect her clients. So you don't know what's exactly true or not until we get concrete evidence of these reports in black and white that they say were filed with the schools, with the doctors and all of these people, then we'll know what's true or not. But again, that still does not justify or excuse what they did to this 14 year old boy.

They took the responsibility when they adopted him to be his guardians, to be his parents, to teach him right from wrong, to help him, to love him, to nurture him.

There were a million different options that they could have done besides what they chose to do. And so regardless of his behavior, they should be held accountable. Now, what do you guys think about this case? What have you heard? Because again, it took me some digging to get this whole piece from the defense attorney because everywhere else on all of the media outlets, although everybody's talking about it, it's just painting one side of the story. And

So I'm interested to know, now hearing both of those sides, what do you think? And again, I know nobody's going to say, oh yeah, he deserved it, or they were trying to just protect their kids. How do you think they could have handled it? How do you think they should have handled it? Do you think those allegations are true? To me, it just seems, again, more like systematic abuse, when just, you know, targeted at this one child of theirs. And

I'm unsure why. Well, we're going to, again, start learning more and more as we peel this back. All right, guys, thanks for tuning in to another episode of Serialistly with me. Thanks for letting me break down another crazy true crime case with you. I just feel like we're talking through it like besties. I really do.

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get notified about it and know about this podcast and can be besties with us and talk true crime with us. All right, guys. So until the next episode, take care and I will be talking with you very soon. Bye, guys.

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24: Couple Locked Their Adopted Son Inside 8x8 Room For 4 Years

Serialously with Annie Elise

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24: Couple Locked Their Adopted Son Inside 8x8 Room For 4 Years 43:03 Share

Serialously with Annie Elise

Chapters

Shownotes Transcript

24: Couple Locked Their Adopted Son Inside 8x8 Room For 4 Years