2 Children by Barbara Dean Baldwin and Tommy Lee Baldwin
Two boys, ages 10 and 9, were imprisoned and starved by their great-aunt Barbara Dean Baldwin and her husband Tommy Lee Baldwin. The boys were forced to live in a hot, windowless garage and were not allowed into the house to use the toilet or bathe. They were punished for making errors in their school […]
2 children of Sandra and Jeffrey Weller, and 4 siblings
16-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, were beaten, imprisoned, and starved by their adoptive mother Sandra Weller and their stepfather Jeffrey Weller. The twins were pulled out of school to be homeschooled after school officials reported suspicions of abuse. Despite the abuse, the twins “participated weekly in home-school social events outside the home,” according […]
4 Daughters of Kenneth Yaw and Rita Starceski
Four girls—15-year-old twins Kelly and Colleen, Michaela (age 13), and Bridget (age 11)—were imprisoned and deprived of food by their father, Dr. Kenneth Yaw. The girls’ stepmother Rita Starceski knew about the abuse and did nothing to stop it. The girls were homeschooled. Yaw and his first wife, Maureen, had 10 children, including one other […]
Children of Samuel Thomas Patrick and Debra Lynn Patrick
Samuel Thomas Patrick fathered 9 children with his sister, Debra Lynn Patrick (pictured), and 4 grandchildren with his adolescent daughters. All 13 children were homebirthed and homeschooled. The abuse came to light when workers at the cemetery where Samuel and Debra’s 8-month-old son Joshua had been buried in 1990 discovered that his coffin had been […]
2 daughters of Johann and Kimery Jorg
Two girls, ages 13 and 11, were abused by their adoptive parents, Johann and Kimery Jorg. Both girls were made to sleep outside using a bucket for a bathroom, and they were not allowed to wear clothes. They were forced to run barefoot in the heat for hours and beaten with a wooden paddle as […]
Brandon Clutter
Homeschooling mother Jaime Clutter was suffering from postpartum depression when she took her two children, Brandon, 10, and Katelyn, 6 months, outside on foot one morning in March, underdressed for the cold weather. All three were found drowned in a nearby creek, suffering from hypothermia. Investigators found no signs of a struggle and ruled the deaths were […]
Donovan McKee
11-year-old Donovan McKee was beaten to death by his mother’s boyfriend, Anthony Lee Bush, over a period of nine hours while his mother, Cynthia McKee, was at work. Bush began beating Donovan because the boy refused to vacuum the floor. Bush was charged with homicide and child endangerment. Donovan’s body showed evidence of injuries from previous abuse. […]
Dozens of children by Dwight "Malachi" York
Dwight “Malachi” York’s was arrested in 2002 and convicted in 2004 of child molestation in what was the largest prosecution of child molestation by a single individual in U.S. history. York was the leader of a quasi-religious cult, United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, and moved his 100 or so followers from Brooklyn, New York, to a rural property in Putnam […]
Four Children of M.A.H. and R.J.H.
M.A.H. and R.J.H. were the biological parents of A.J.H., age 10, and the adoptive parents of P.P.H., T.S.H., and N.M.H., ages 8, 7, and 5. They homeschooled all four children. In October 2012, M.A.H. took P.P.H. to the emergency room, concerned that he had vomited blood. Even though he was 8 years old, P.P.H. weighed only 34 […]
10 children of Sharon and Reed Leonard
Sharon Leonard struck her ten adopted children with a paddle or other objects, including a plastic pipe, a metal rod and a snow-removal brush. The children told investigators that Sharon had threatened to kill a couple of the boys. They also reported that six of them had been made to stay outside the Leonards’ home from time to time […]
