E-Mail Leads To Three Arrests In Horrific Child Abuse Case
What is it about Ohio and sexual abusers who imprison victims in their homes? Once again, authorities rescued shackled victims – but this time, they were all children:
A girl beaten and tied to her bed, sometimes for weeks at a time, won freedom for herself and her siblings by emailing a teacher at her online school to plead for help, officials said Wednesday.
The email late last month led the teacher to call 911 and after an investigation involving police and children’s services authorities led to the arrests of the girl’s mother, grandmother and stepfather, police said.
The children all were beaten and tied to their beds, and the 44-year-old man arrested in the case also is charged with repeatedly raping his two stepdaughters, ages 9 and 11, and abusing their 8-year-old brother, police said.
The girl and her siblings now are in foster care, attend a bricks-and-mortar public school and seem to be doing well, Scioto County Sheriff’s Office Capt. David Hall said.
“I’m sure like most kids she trusted in her teacher that she would get her help,” Hall said. “We don’t know if the opportunity was there that maybe no adults were around. Or maybe she just had enough.”
He called the case “a horrific situation for the children in this house.”
The girl sent the email to her teacher at the Toledo-based Ohio Virtual Academy on Jan. 30, Hall said. She asked the teacher to call 911 because she and her siblings were being “tied to the beds and beat,” authorities said.
A late report in the NY Daily News identified the suspects:
Juan Carlos Sanchez, Bobbie Sue Pack and Edwina Louis are alleged to have created a house of horrors in Wheelersburg, replete with ropes, chains and paddles used to beat and restrain the children. Sanchez is accused of raping an 11- and 9-year-old girl.
