A Florida couple was arrested after allegedly locking up their adopted son of 14 years in a small structure in the garage, where he was monitored with a camera and had a bucket to use as a toilet, police said.
The parents, Tracy and Timothy Ferriter, both 46 years old, were charged of aggravated child abuse and false imprisonment, the Jupiter Police Department announced Wednesday in a press release.
NOW: Tracy and Timothy Ferriter appear at PBC Jail
The couple is accused of forcing their 13-year-old adopted son to live in a small structure in the garage for years
According to the prosecutor “reactive attachment disorder” could be their reason for trapping the child inside pic.twitter.com/Apf8GIdzV2
— Danielle Seat (@DanielleSeat) February 9, 2022
The authorities learned of the living conditions to which the child was allegedly subjected on 30 January, when detectives visited the Ferriter residence in Egret Landing, after the boy was reported to have run away.
Tracy allowed a detective entered the home, who found an 8-foot-by-8-foot structure in the garage that the mother said was being used “for an office or storage space,” police said.
It had a latch and a deadbolt, “both lockable from the outside, as well as a light switch only on the outside,” according to the authorities.
There was a camera, a mattress and a bucket in the structure, police said.
The boy was located the next day at school and interviewed by detectives.
Told officers she ran away “because I feel like no one loves me,” according to a criminal probable cause affidavit.
The boy told detectives he didn’t want to go back to his family, begged to be arrested and said he “would rather be in prison than go home,” the document says.
He said that the longest time he remembers being locked in the room was from 16 to 18 hours, according to your affidavit.
The teenager also told the police that he had a room similar to the structure from the garage when his family lived in Arizona.
Police also interviewed one of the boy’s brothers, who said the victim was locked in the structure when he misbehaved or was in trouble before to add that “he has many problems”.
Later, the police determined that the boy “has been physically abused and forcibly confined to live inside the garage structure” since at less 2017.
He was allowed to attend school, but was “forced to stay in the structure for the rest of the day,” police said.
“Meals were brought to the child and the bucket was provided to use in the bathroom,” police said in the press release.
Police obtained a search warrant to search the camera Ring into the room and found “thousands of videos” showing the boy “repeatedly locked inside his room every day”.
A video showed him locked in the room after “it was discovered that he had ‘stolen’ chocolate and cookies from the kitchen, despite being told he could not have them,” according to the affidavit.
He also states that the police department received a call in December of 2021 from a man who said he contacted to build an office in the garage of the house and that the specific instructions seemed “very strange”.
His description of the structure coincided with the description provided by the police in the statement press release.
The man told the police that “if someone was inside the office, they would not be able to leave unless someone opened the door for them from the outside,” according to their statement. He also said that “the entire project had to be completed in two days”.
It was not clear on Thursday what the authorities did after the man went to the police with that information.
The couple had three other children living in the house. They have been removed by the Florida Department of Children and Families, police said.
The investigation is ongoing.
The Ferriters appeared in court on Wednesday, where they were ordered to be held on $( bail , dollars and have no contact with their children unless the state Department of Children and Families gives them permission, West Palm Beach, Florida-based NBC affiliate WPTV reported.
They were later released on bail, according to the news station.
The couple’s attorney, Nellie King, told NBC News on Thursday that she presented “critical evidence” in the case to police that was “ignored”.
“The police have the obligation to carry out investigations in an objective and exhaustive manner. I gave information to the police to help them in the fact-finding process, including evidence from Arizona, where this family had lived up to a month ago. This critical evidence was ignored”, he said.
“In the criminal legal system, the temptation for a community to rush to judge is tempered by the judicial process, the presumption of innocence and the facts,” he added. “So what Tim and Tracy have been through over the last few years will be presented in court.”
Read more
Colorado woman who lied about her daughter’s health to obtain donations was sentenced to 14 years in prison; the minor died
Hispanic father from Miami shoots his children of 12 and 9 years before committing suicide
Moose attacks a sled in Alaska, injuring four dogs