An absolutely horrific discovery was made yesterday in Portage, Wisconsin.
The child abduction case of Courtney Clark led investigators from Florida to a home in the small central Wisconsin town.
PORTAGE -- Officers investigating a child abduction case went to a Portage residence, found an 11-year-old boy who had been severely tortured and then found his mother Friday buried in the back yard -- a possible homicide victim, police said.
The condition of the 11-year-old resembled pictures of those coming out of concentration camps at the end of World War II, Columbia County District Attorney Jane Kohlwey said.
"It's horrible what we're seeing," she said.
The 35-year-old woman's body was found at 2:20 p.m. Friday after her children -- the 11-year-old boy and a 15-year-old daughter -- told police she went missing around Memorial Day. The daughter said after lengthy questioning that her mother might have been buried.
A cadaver dog helped authorities locate the burial spot.
According to police, a group of four adults, including the woman who died, and five children had lived at the home since February. Before that, the group lived in many states, including Florida, Tennessee, Maine and Colorado, and had stayed in motels in the Wisconsin Dells area.
Police were originally called to the home Thursday afternoon on a report from Florida that an abducted 2-year-old girl could be living there with her mother.
They found two women, the 15-year-old girl and three young girls. The 2-year-old, a 1-year-old and a 3-month-old girls were believed to be the daughters of one of the women. They included the 2-year-old she was accused of abducting last year in Florida's Lake County.
Police Chief Ken Manthey said the women gave false information about their identities and were taken to the police department with the children.
The authorities should be commended for tracking down Courtney Clark.
That success uncovered all this horror, the 11-year-old boy's tortured existence and his mother buried in the yard.
...According to police Lt. Mark Hahn, the boy had been tortured and burned with scalding and boiling water as punishment for failing to clean, and he also appeared to have been regularly locked in a closet.
“The diagnosis is definite abuse, definite serial child torture, profound malnutrition of a child consistent with chronic medical neglect,” one investigator said.
The boy was taken to University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison. He is listed in guarded condition, and will likely face a long recovery.
I don't know how people can treat a child that way.
When Chief Kenneth Manthey discussed the condition of the boy, he looked positively ill. He said that it was the worst case of abuse he'd seen in 30 years.
Think of how severe the abuse was for an officer to say that the child resembles a concentration camp victim.
Wisconsin has had so many heartbreaking stories in the past month.
Milwaukee has endured so many shootings, brazen daylight attacks, and the death of an innocent 4-year-old, shot while skipping rope outside her home.
The mass murder in Delavan, with a death toll of six, including the shooter, happened only a week ago today.
And now, this.
It's a steady stream of violence and unspeakable brutality.
What's next?
2 comments:
I wanted to cry. I never thought I would be one for the death sentence, but I think I am now. All I could think of was my son. With what I have been seeing on the news I have started saying "Is there something in Wisconsin's water?"
I understand your reaction.
This story is so upsetting.
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