GUILTY AZ - Larry & Becky Tortellet for child abuse, Tucson, 2008

I will never understand why or how anyone could abuse a child, especially when there are more than one child in the home and they single just one out.
 
Any "feral child" case, it's saddening. There are many more out there that we don't even know =(
 
From the article.......
"He didn't get to go outside and play with other children. He didn't attend school he doesn't know how to read and write. We understand that the child was basically living in, or his bedroom was a closet. He had a carpet, a sleeping bag and a sheet."...



How heartbreaking is this????????????????????? And will he get out of the foster care system?

ETA: Article says nothing about foster care.....where are these kids now?
 
Poor little guy! :(

I will never understand how ANYONE can look into the eyes of an innocent child and abuse them, belittle them or make them live in these kinds of conditions. It makes me sick!! :furious:

I hope he goes on to live a happy, healthy and WONDERFUL life...he sure deserves it!!
 
Sept 2008:

The boy didn't attend school, can't read or write and weighed only 48 pounds, Deputy Dawn Hanke said...

50-year-old Becky Lee Tortellet and 52-year-old Larry Alan Tortellet were jailed on $50,000 bond each.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/0...ear-old-grandson-in-foul-smelling-closet.html


April 2009:

A Pima County prosecutor is trying to put Becky and Larry Tortellet back in jail while they await trial, according to court documents...

The motion, which is being heard this week before Superior Court Judge Howard Hantman, asserts that Becky Tortellet, 50, has a more than 20-year history of using physical restraints on her own children and has moved from state to state to evade child welfare workers...

Flores said Becky Tortellet’s son, now an adult, was physically restrained by her repeatedly “for his own protection,” she said.

She admitted using plastic zip ties to bind her grandson’s wrists to keep him from “acting out,” the detective said. The boy told CPS workers he was being treated this way because he was told he was “bad.”...

A sheriff’s report said the closet where the boy was held emitted a “very heavy odor of urine.” Also, there were feces smeared on the wall...

The older boy now drinks from a regular cup, uses the bathroom and has not had “any behavioral issues at all,” according to court documents.

The boy appears to be “very understanding and somewhat articulate,” the documents state.

The boys were placed in a therapeutic foster home last fall and are attending school.

http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue/200...nd-revoked-for-couple-accused-of-child-abuse/
 
March 2011:

Pima County Superior Court Judge Howard Hantman sentenced Tortellet, 52, to 2.5 years. He sentenced her former husband, Larry, 55, to 1.5 years...

Detectives found the boy living in a 49-by-41-inch closet that smelled of urine and feces and had no light. He was forced to wear a diaper, drink from a sippy cup and sleep on the floor.

"They never really let me out of the closet. Becky would beat me. She would treat me like garbage," he told the judge. "She always treated my (younger) brother like a perfect angel. He always got what he wanted."

The boy told Hantman last week he can remember being mistreated from the age of 3. He recalled being tied to car seats and beds, locked in the closet, beaten, burned with a cigarette, drugged with prescription medications and threatened with commitment to a mental institution...

[Defence attorney] Larsen attributed the boy's problems to his mother and her drug abuse, which eventually led to the boy and his brother being placed with the Tortellets, who were ill-equipped to handle a special-needs child. The grandparents "were adrift in a sea of behaviors with no skills to deal with them," Larsen said.

The Tortellets told police and CPS workers in three states that the boy was "out of control." They said they kept him confined because he would start fires; stick things in electrical sockets; steal medication; bite them; destroy furniture, windows and walls; and sneak out in the middle of the night.

http://m.tucson.com/news/local/crim...5235-825a-67b4b3a06970.html?mobile_touch=true
 

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