Detroit Father, Stepmother Charged With Torturing Missing 12-Year-Old Son
Raymond Legaspi | | Feb 20, 2015 09:56 PM EST |
(Photo : Stephanie Davis/WWJ Newsradio 950) Charles Bothuell IV, 46, is set to be arraigned on charges of torture and second-degree child abuse in a Detroit court.
The father and stepmother of a boy in Detroit are facing charges of child abuse and torture, after their victim -- who went missing for 11 days -- was found in the basement of his family's condo.
Monique Dillard-Bothuwell, 37, and Charles Bothuell IV, 46, will be arraigned on the two charges in Michigan's 36th District Court. Police took them into custody on Friday morning.
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The abuse was discovered when in June last year, Bothuell called authorities to report his son, Charlie, 12, was missing from their condo along the 1300 block of Detroit's Nicolet Place.
Michigan police and federal agents found the boy after 11 days, cowering behind boxes in the pits of his home. Authorities said the boy was very thin, with upper body marks, when he was discovered.
At the authorities found the boy, his father was in the middle of a live television interview. He could not speak when he was told his son was found in his condo's basement.
A Wayne County prosecutor, Kym Worthy, said the couple habitually abused the boy, forced him to stay in the basement to isolate him, deprived him of sustenance and forced him to undergo unreasonable and extreme physical exercises.
A petition in the county's family court said the father admitted to hitting his son, at times bad enough to leave body marks. Another complaint alleged that the couple ordered the boy to finish extreme physical workouts and stay in the basement to punish him.
The report said the boy experienced physical torture by his father in the whole two years he lived under his care, adding the abuse included hitting the victim with a PVC pipe on his feet, chest, butt, thighs, head, arms and sides.
Prosecutors said this is the first time in Wayne County that abusers were charged with torturing a child who is still alive.
The boy's biological mother took him in custody.
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