A 41-year-old mother from Arkansas and her 40-year-old husband are each facing more than 100 felony criminal charges for allegedly locking the woman’s 15-year-old son naked in a bathroom without food for days on end, only allowing him to leave for school and locking the door with a ratchet strap.
Jaclyn Machelle Barnett and the victim’s stepfather, Daniel Alan Wright, were arrested on Wednesday and charged with 112 counts of first-degree false imprisonment with risk of injury, as well as one count of first-degree endangering the welfare of a minor and permitting child abuse.
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Officers from the Mountain Home Police Department responded to the family’s upstairs apartment on November 2, 2024, after a downstairs neighbor heard what they believed to be a child’s cries for help, according to Mountain Home news radio station KTLO.
When the officer arrived at the address, he went to the reporting party’s bedroom and spoke with a boy who said he was locked in the upstairs bathroom. The officer reportedly knocked on the door of the upstairs apartment, where he was greeted by two juveniles aged 10 and 11.
The children allegedly claimed that their parents were working and that they were unaware that anyone was locked in the bathroom.
However, authorities told Springfield, Missouri, CBS affiliate KOLR that the children’s response was most likely due to their coaching by Barnett and Wright.
“I believe, as do others, that these kids are undoubtedly coached. “Whether it’s fear for themselves or whatever,” lead investigator Mike Day told the station.
Day claimed the children led him to the back room, where the noise appeared to have originated.
“They discovered a ratchet strap attached to a bedpost and secured to the bathroom door, preventing [the child] from leaving.
The sergeant spoke with the child behind the door before letting him out, and he discovered the child was in there without clothes, and the child refused to come out because he was embarrassed. He had not eaten. “He was hungry.
According to investigators, the boy told them he was regularly locked inside the bathroom and was only allowed to leave for school. While the other two children slept in bunk beds, the victim allegedly slept on a wooden pallet left in the bathroom.
During police interviews, Barnett and Wright both claimed they had no idea what the child was doing naked in the bathroom, blaming it on the other children playing, according to KTLO.
However, when police asked the 10- and 11-year-olds to use the ratchet strap, neither could. The parents reportedly changed their story, claiming that they had been using the strap to keep the bathroom door shut due to a leaking faucet.
Day explained that authorities charged Barnett and Wright with 112 counts of endangerment based on the number of days the boy attended school in 2024.
“We know with the child stating in his forensic interview that he was held in this bathroom with no lights, no food every night, but he’s let out to go to school,” he allegedly said to the reporter. “That is, he was released and then returned.
To begin, [the prosecutor] said, ‘Let’s go back to January. Let’s find out how many days he actually attended school. So that’s how we calculated a number based on those numbers, because he was in school 112 times this year, from January to the time he was located.”
Day also stated that as the investigation continues, he expects to see additional charges filed against the couple.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s very, very, very traumatizing for the kids, but also for the officers who have to deal with seeing and hearing this, which is terrible,” Day said.
Police discovered 29 separate reports of child mistreatment dating back to 2013, according to the affidavit. Day told KOLR that the public’s outrage over the allegations was justified.
“When the public starts to get upset about this, it’s justified, no doubt, but I think just as a whole, we all failed this kid,” said Day. “As a whole, we all failed him.”
Barnett and Wright were both being held at the Baxter County Jail on a $50,000 bond. As of Friday morning, Wright had posted bond, while Barnett had not.
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