Homeschooling’s 

Invisible Children

2 Children of Keith and Susan Ludwig

Investigators responding to an anonymous tip in 1997 found that Keith and Susan Ludwig forced their two daughters, aged 13 and 15, to sleep in make-shift cages with a brick-and-string alarm system and whipped them with leather straps, sticks, and rubber hoses. Authorities had investigated the Florida couple for child abuse in 1993, but while […]

3 Children of Leslie Tiesler and Brad Thill

Leslie Tiesler is accused of starving three adopted sons, aged 13 and 14, shooting them with a BB gun, beating them with a spoon, and confining them to a tool chest for days. The other two children in the home, one biological, were not abused. Leslie’s ex-husband, Brad Thills, adopted the four children in 2008, […]

2 Children of David and Glenda Kinghorn

David and Glenda Kinghorn had 2 biological children and four adopted children, and took in as many as 8 additional children from disrupted adoptions. David was charged and convicted of raping one of these children, a girl aged 13. There were also allegations that the Kinghorns punched a 10 year old boy, Sasha Bignell (one […]

5 Children of John and Linda Dollar

John and Linda Dollar are accused of abusing their 5 adopted children, ages 12, 13, 14, 14, and 16, by branding them with a cattle prod, striking their feet with hammers, pulling out their toenails with pliers, and binding them with chains. The Dollars also deprived the children of food to the extent that the […]

2 Children of Dwayne and Pamela Hardy

Investigators responding to an anonymous tip found two children, aged 6 and 9, malnourished and scarred from beatings. Dwayne and Pamela Hardy had adopted the two children six months earlier, and homeschooled the two just as they had their four biological children, who were now grown. The couple “disciplined” the children by frequently depriving them […]

3 Children of Mary Corrigan

Mary Corrigan, 33, was charged with child neglect after it was discovered that she locked her three children, 6, 8, and 10, naked in a bathroom for long periods of time and forced them to drink vinegar, eat hot peppers, and take cold showers as a punishment for bad language. The children were also malnourished […]

Child of Rebecca Long and Jon Pomeroy

Rebecca Long, 44, and Jon Pomeroy, 43, have been charged with first-degree and second-degree criminal mistreatment in what the local sheriff’s investigators called “the worst case of child abuse they had ever seen.” A 14 year old girl, Pomeroy’s biological daughter and Long’s stepdaughter, was deprived of food and water for years, and weighed less […]

Marcus Holloway

10 year old Marcus Holloway died of severe malnutrition after his mother, Candice Holloway, and her boyfriend, Private Connell C. Williams, 32, fed him only water and rice cakes over the course of several months as a punishment for eating too many sweets. During this time, Marcus was locked in a room described as being […]

5 Children of Thomas and Susan Lavery

Thomas Lavery, 57, plead guilty to attempted child endangerment after being accused of bullying his five homeschooled children to win spelling bees and excel academically by beating them and forcing them to study for long periods without sleep or bathroom breaks. Lavery also jumped on his daughter, Marjory, and threatening to kill her after she […]

Child of Paul and Debbie Salvetti

Paul and Debbie Salvetti’s 13 year old adopted son escaped imprisonment in a room of their home by kicking through a wall into another bedroom. He went to his former public school the next day to notify a staff member there about the abuse. He weighed 87 pounds at the time of his escape, two […]