🚀 go-pugleaf

Here's a good Obama voting union member story from Wisconsin.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2104203/Wisconsin-child-
abuse-case-Starved-girl-15-tells-alleged-mental-sexual-abuse-
hands-family.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Malnourished teen found wandering streets in pyjamas
Tells of 'mental and sexual abuse' in court documents
'Made to perform oral sex on her stepbrother since 10'
'Was forced to eat her own faeces and drink urine'
Claims she had to scavenge scraps from garbage

She weighed 70lbs while her father weighs 240lbs and her 
stepmother 370lbs

A severely malnourished teenage girl has revealed for the first 
time how she allegedly suffered years of physical, mental and 
sexual abuse at the hands of her father, stepmother and 
stepbrother.

The 15-year-old weighed just 70lbs when she was found walking 
barefoot in pyjamas near her home after escaping from the 
basement where she had apparently been kept for around five 
years.

In court documents, she told how she was repeatedly forced to 
perform oral sex on her teenage stepbrother from the age of ten 
and made to eat her own faeces.

She told investigators during lengthy interviews at the hospital 
where she is being treated how she could hear her family eating 
and getting ready for the day while she was starved.

If she felt especially brave or desperate, she would call to her 
stepmother and beg for food, but usually she just went back to 
bed and hoped her hunger pangs went away.

She said most of the food she ate was scraps she found on the 
floor or in the garbage.

The girl describes running away from her Madison home in 
Wisconsin, only to be found, brought back and threatened.

She had no one to ask for help, she wasn't allowed to go to 
school or church, have visitors or talk on the phone.

Dane County officials say the girl is getting help now. She 
gained 17lbs after about a week under doctors' care, a criminal 
complaint said.

She has been placed in foster care, and child welfare officials 
say there's been an outpouring of support from people across the 
nation, who sent cards and letters.

Her father and stepmother have been charged with child abuse, 
child neglect and reckless endangerment. The charges carry a 
maximum combined prison sentence of 11 years, three months.

The girl's 18-year-old stepbrother is charged with child abuse 
and child sexual assault and faces 68 years behind bars if 
convicted.

The three have preliminary hearings set for Thursday and 
prosecutors say more charges are likely.

The defendants and their relatives have declined to comment on 
the charges.

The stepbrother's attorney did not immediately return a phone 
message Monday, and the father and stepmother are still applying 
for public defenders.

The girl told investigators the abuse started the month she 
turned 10. Her stepmother beat her and her stepbrother 
repeatedly forced her to perform oral sex on him. That's also 
when the family began keeping her in the basement.

Because it had no bathroom, she said she often bathed in a 
basement sink that had no hot water and relieved herself in 
boxes or containers. If she made a mess while doing so, 'they 
will make me eat it. Or drink it or rub it on my face,' she said.

She said she was forced to do chores naked and had to call 
upstairs for permission to eat. She was often told her 
stepmother was too busy to feed her.

'I know it's a lie,' the teen told police. 'She's playing with 
my brother upstairs. I can hear her upstairs watching TV.'

She wasted away to 70 pounds. In contrast, police records say 
her father weighs 240lbs and her stepmother 370lbs.

The girl implied she could unlock the basement door, but said 
there were motion sensors and an alarm that would draw her 
stepmother's wrath.

Still, she said she fled a couple times, but her parents always 
found her and threatened to report her to police as a runaway.

Neighbors expressed concern. One called authorities after 
watching the parents scream at the girl as she was forced to 
push cement blocks from one side of the yard to the other for no 
apparent reason.

However, the parents blocked county workers from speaking with 
the girl.

While there might have been more chances to seek help, the girl 
said she didn't until February 6 when her stepmother threatened 
to throw her down the stairs.

Terrified, barefoot and lightly dressed, the girl bolted through 
the door and into the cold, wandering aimlessly until a motorist 
stopped to check on her and eventually contacted police.

'The human brain can only tolerate so much trauma, so much 
fear,' said Ernie Allen, the president of the National Center 
for Missing & Exploited Children.

'What children in captivity tend to do is figure out whatever 
they have to do to survive. So we should never be surprised when 
children don't do heroic things, when they don't try to escape.

'It's pretty clear that this girl was in a situation in which 
she had no power, in which every aspect of her life was 
controlled.'