Days would go by and no one would notice.
A teenager told police he would sit inside a closet of his home, surrounded by days worth of his own human waste, banging on the door hoping someone might hear. He ran away, police said, and begged his friend to never make him go back.
A Riviera Beach man and woman are accused of locking two children inside of a closet for days at a time, depriving them of medical care and food for years, according to an arrest affidavit.
Sabrina Golden-Hazel and Quincy Hazel Sr., both 44, are accused of neglecting two children – ages 12 and 17 – over the course of several years.
Riviera Beach police were alerted to the alleged abuse after the 17-year-old boy was brought to the police department Sunday.
He told officers that Golden-Hazel would lock him and the 12-year-old girl in a closet, denying them food and forcing them to go the bathroom in a bucket. He said he had never been to school nor had he ever been to a doctor, and officers saw that most of his teeth were either missing or rotting inside his mouth.
It is unclear whether Golden-Hazel and Hazel are the parents of the two children.
The teen told officers he has escaped the home about a month ago and had been living on the street. A 19-year-old woman had taken him in since then and he told her he was scared to return home.
He described a life full of abuse and pain. According to the arrest report, the teen said Golden-Hazel started locking him in the closet with the girl when the two were young. They would go several days inside the closet and would be forced to eat scraps from the garbage when they finally got out.
During the time they were locked in the closet, they would lose track of time, he said. They couldn’t see sunlight and never knew how much time exactly had passed, according to the report.
Sometimes, someone inside the house would feed him and the girl rice and neck bones, but he was constantly hungry. He would rifle through the garbage but would sometimes get sick from eating it.
Source: Sun Sentinel | Kate Jacobson
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