Two Hyde Park parents locked their 7-year-old son in a bedroom with no carpet, padding, pillows or bedding, and forced him to sleep naked with only a blanket, the child told police earlier this month.
Law enforcement officers along with representatives from the Division of Child and Family Services went to the home on Sept. 5, according to search warrant affidavits released this week.
DCFS had received reports that the parents had withheld meals from the child, who appeared not to have gained weight in a year and on occasion had been left in the same clothes for “a long period of time.”
During an interview at the house, the boy told police he’d been having suicidal and homicidal thoughts, the affidavit says. The boy was “thinking of harming his family along with himself.” The boy also described being locked in the bare room without bedding “for months,” the affidavit says.
Police then took the boy to the Children’s Justice Center for another interview, where he disclosed that he’d been made to sleep on the floor naked with just one blanket, according to the affidavit.
He explained to police that the floor was bare because he would eat the carpet and urinate on the carpet, the affidavit says.
The boy’s mother had set up an online fundraising page in June 2016, which described his “severe mental health struggles” and diagnoses of reactive attachment disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The parents had adopted the boy, who had previously experienced “extreme physical and emotional abuse,” the woman wrote on the page.
She asked for financial help to pay for treatment, and has raised $13,750 through the page in the time since.
The boy told police in his interview that sometimes he is locked in the room for an entire day without being fed, according to the affidavit.
When he is in trouble, the boy told officers, his parents gave him an “ice cold” shower, telling him, “I hope you remember how this feels.”
When locked in his room, the boy said, his parents would sometimes not allow him to leave the room to use the restroom, and he would have to urinate in an area of the room out of the view of a camera that monitored him.
The boy’s mother told police that the family had a live-feed camera system set up to monitor and communicate with the boy when he is in his room.
If the boy wants to communicate with his parents, he is to wave his arms at the camera, and then they’ll talk to him through a speaker and microphone, she told police.
The mother also told police she and her husband used a cell phone to watch the live feed, communicate with their son while he was locked in the bedroom and communicate with each other regarding “issues” with the son.
Police seized the cell phone, two laptops, two cameras, a tablet, a thumbdrive and other electronic devices that may contain evidence of the alleged abuse.
Both parents were booked into the Cache County jail Sept. 6, but were released on bond of $1,950 each. Charges had not been filed against the parents as of Thursday.