Raysate Chain Knight, age 6, was starved, imprisoned, and beaten to death by her stepfather, Raymond Jefferson, and her mother Connie Knight. Knight’s four other children, girls ages 16, 13, and 8 and a 4-year-old boy, were not abused. Raysate was homeschooled.
Raysate was born addicted to cocaine and removed from her mother’s custody. She lived with her grandmother, aunt and uncle until she was 4 years old and her mother reclaimed her. Knight and Jefferson kept Raysate locked in a urine-soaked closet, fed her less than their other children, burned her with cigarettes, and beat her with thorny branches. When Raysate turned the TV on too loud in September 2001, Jefferson beat her unconscious. Knight and Jefferson did not call an ambulance for fear of the abuse being discovered, and Raysate died as a result of her injuries.
The abuse came to light when Raysate’s body was found dumped in a water-filled ditch. During the six months it took to identify her body, she was known in the media as “Angel Doe”. Her grandmother eventually identified her from a police sketch. Knight and Jefferson were arrested in March 2003 in Lafayette, Louisiana, where they had fled after the murder. Both were found guilty of injury to a child. Knight was sentenced to 50 years in prison and Jefferson was sentenced to life.
Date: September 7, 2001
Location: Houston, Texas Read More
Posted: March 2, 2015 by clmccracken
14 Children by Roland and Jacques Robidoux
Fourteen children were physically abused and medically neglected in The Body, a cultlike organization controlled by their grandfather, Roland Robidoux, and his son Jacques Robidoux. When they were rescued, the victims included: 4 children of Jacques and Karen Robidoux; 5 children (ages 3 to 10) of Dennis and Michelle (Robidoux) Mingo; 4 daughters of David and Rebecca (Robidoux) Corneau; and 1 infant daughter of Mark and Trinette (Robidoux) Daneau. Three additional children (Jacques’s son Samuel and two of the Corneaus’ children) died before they could be removed from their parents’ custody. All the children were homeschooled.
Roland encouraged sect members “to beat their children with paddles to ‘break their spirit’ and encouraged spanking babies who were just a few months old.” Sect members opposed traditional medicine (including eyeglasses), practiced unassisted homebirths, and never took their children to a doctor. The Corneaus’ two dead children—Jeremiah, born in spring 1999, and an unnamed child born in late 2001—were stillborn due to complications in unassisted homebirths. Samuel Robidoux was 11 months old when he was deliberately starved to death after a religious vision by Michelle Mingo.
The murder came to light in November 1999 when Dennis Mingo fled the sect with his children and reported it to the police. The rest of the children were subsequently removed by social services. Jacques Robidoux was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Karen Robidoux was convicted of assault and sentenced to time served. Michelle Mingo pleaded guilty to accessory to murder and was sentenced to time served. Roland Robidoux was never charged and died of natural causes in 2006.
Date: November 10, 1999
Location: Attleboro, Massachusetts Read More
Posted: March 2, 2015 by clmccracken
Leonard Cammalleri
Leonard Joseph “Lenny” Cammalleri, b. 1983, was abducted by his father, Leonard Alfred Cammalleri, in April 1984. Cammalleri homeschooled Lenny to avoid detection, preventing him from socializing with other children and closely monitoring his movements outside the home. Cammalleri never took Lenny to a doctor.
Lenny was abducted from the Stamford, Connecticut home of his mother, Candice Hartman, as part of a custody dispute—Cammalleri purportedly believed Lenny was in danger of abuse. He raised him first in Florida and then in the Bronx. The boy was discovered in 1996. Cammalleri was convicted of kidnapping and served 2 years in prison.
Date: September 26, 1996
Location: New York City, New York Read More
Posted: February 23, 2015 by clmccracken
Son of Tina Graham and Vernon Widner
A 14-year-old boy was starved, caged, and physically abused by his mother, Tina Louise Graham, and her fiance Vernon D. Widner. The boy was withdrawn from school in January 2011 to be homeschooled, although no education actually took place. The boy’s older minor sister participated in the abuse; it is unclear if she or the boy’s other siblings were also abused.
The boy was beaten with a horsewhip and belt, strangled, fed one meal per day, and locked in a dog kennel several times, once for an entire day. His parents forced him to bathe with extremely hot water and bleach; they also threatened to cut off his genitals and threatened him with a loaded gun.
The abuse came to light in March 2011, when the boy’s repeated attempts to run away from home brought him to the police’s attention. He told them that being unable to escape the abuse by going to school had made it too much to bear. Graham and Widner were charged with multiple felonies including criminal confinement, battery, and neglect of a dependent.
Date: March 2011
Location: Lowell, Indiana Read More
Posted: February 23, 2015 by clmccracken
9 Children of James and Lucinda Haskin
Nine children, ages 3 to 17, were starved, neglected, and sexually abused by their parents, James E. Haskin Jr. and Lucinda Catherine Haskin. The Haskins claimed to be homeschooling them.
According to an affidavit, the children were neglected from December 2009 to October 20, 2011. The Haskins “withheld proper food, shelter, clothing, hygiene and education.” Two of the girls were sexually abused by James Haskin, and the 16-year-old girl gave birth to his child in August 2010. Haskin told her the child was born dead and allegedly buried her on his property (the baby’s body was never found). Though the girls told their mother more than ten times about the abuse, she did nothing to prevent it.
The abuse came to light when police learned that the Haskins were associates of Marty Hester, who was arrested October 28, 2011 for aggravated possession of child pornography. James Haskin was found guilty on “nine counts of child neglect and three counts of sexual abuse”; he was sentenced to 245 years in prison. Lucinda Haskin pleaded no contest to similar charges and was found unfit to stand trial.
Date: October 20, 2011
Location: Monroe, Oklahoma Read More
Last Updated: July 3, 2021 by clmccracken
3 children of Stanley Lacefield and Cicely Mason
A 10-year-old boy and his 8-year-old sister were beaten and imprisoned by their stepfather, Stanley A. Lacefield, and their mother, Cicely K. Mason. The couple were also wanted in Arkansas on charges of beating one of Lacefield’s sons in 1998. Their 6-month-old son was not reported to be abused. The children were homeschooled.
The boy was forced to live in a kitchen cupboard while his sister was forced to live in a closet. The boy was scalded, beaten with a hammer and a knotted extension cord, and tortured with other household implements. The abuse came to light in September 1999 when the boy escaped from his prison and was found wandering in the street with a fractured skull and hand and leg injuries. Lacefield and Mason went on the run with the two younger children; they were featured on America’s Most Wanted and were apprehended in Memphis, Tennessee on October 2, 1999. They each pleaded guilty to several felonies. Lacefield was sentenced to 25 years in prison; Mason was sentenced to 8.
Date: September 23, 1999
Location: Dayton, Ohio Read More
Posted: February 17, 2015 by clmccracken
4 children of Lucinda and Edward Sizemore Sr.
Eddie Sizemore Jr. (age 17) and his three siblings (ages 11, 8, and 4) were imprisoned, deprived of food and water, and neglected by their parents, Lucinda and Edward Sizemore Sr. The children were homebirthed and did not have birth certificates. Eddie attended first grade but was then pulled from school. The other three children never attended school and were incapable of speaking English—they devised their own language to communicate among themselves.
The Sizemores moved to Ohio from Hazard, Kentucky in 1988. In 1996 child services began investigating them, but stopped when the Sizemores claimed to be moving back to Kentucky. The children were not allowed to leave the house because Lucinda Sizemore told them that “if they went outside and people saw them not being in school, she’d get in trouble.” Eddie was made to sleep under only a plastic sheet during the winter. When they were rescued, the younger children could not bathe or dress themselves. One of them had an untreated hernia.
The abuse came to light when Eddie wrote a letter to his aunt begging for her help. He had been afraid to ask for help before due to fear of punishment by his father. The Sizemores were each charged with “four counts of nonsupport of a dependent, a misdemeanor” and sentenced to one year in prison.
Date: January 1999
Location: Dayton, Ohio Read More
Posted: February 17, 2015 by clmccracken
4 children by Rita and William Meserve
Four children, ages 16, 13, 10, and 8, were tortured by their aunt, Rita Meserve. Their uncle, William Franklin Meserve, did nothing to stop the abuse and in some cases held the children down. The children were homeschooled.
The children came to live in the Meserves’ mobile home in 1994 after their mother died of breast cancer (their father was in prison). The children were repeatedly shot with a staple gun as punishment for failing to complete their chores or schoolwork. The Meserves claimed the children did it to themselves.
The eldest boy alerted police to the abuse in February 1999. The Meserves were found guilty of “25 counts of abuse, including four torture charges” and sentenced to life in prison.
Date: February 1999
Location: San Bernardino, California Read More
Posted: February 17, 2015 by clmccracken
Pridine Fru
Actress and talk-show host Pridine Fru (right) was imprisoned and physically and sexually abused by her adoptive parents, Joseph (seated) and Evelyn (left) Djoumessi, from the time she was illegally adopted at age 14 until she was rescued at age 17. During this time, she was forced to live in the Djoumessis’ basement and work as their slave, responsible for all housework and childcare. Though the conditions of the adoption—which occurred under a false name and with a fraudulent passport—included sending Pridine to school, the Djoumessis did not do so and instead homeschooled her. However, the only thing they contributed to her education was to check a GED book out from the library.
Pridine was originally adopted in 1996 from the Djoumessis’ native Cameroon under an arrangement with the girl’s parents whereby Pridine would help provide childcare and in exchange the Djoumessis would send her to school. Instead they enslaved her. She was not allowed to use the showers in the house; she was prevented from ever leaving the house by threats and intimidation; she was beaten with a belt, a spoon, and a shoe; and she was raped several times by Joseph Djoumessi. In January 2000, when she learned that the Djoumessis intended to send her back to Cameroon and bring over another girl, she escaped to seek help from her neighbor, who reported the abuse to the police in February.
The Djoumessis were each charged with child abuse, kidnapping, and conspiracy to kidnap, although the two latter charges were later dropped. Both were found guilty of child abuse and sent to prison. Joseph Djoumessi was also found guilty of criminal sexual conduct.
Date: February 24, 2000
Location: Farmington Hills, Michigan Read More
Posted: February 17, 2015 by clmccracken
Raysate Knight
Raysate Chain Knight, age 6, was starved, imprisoned, and beaten to death by her stepfather, Raymond Jefferson, and her mother Connie Knight. Knight’s four other children, girls ages 16, 13, and 8 and a 4-year-old boy, were not abused. Raysate was homeschooled.
Raysate was born addicted to cocaine and removed from her mother’s custody. She lived with her grandmother, aunt and uncle until she was 4 years old and her mother reclaimed her. Knight and Jefferson kept Raysate locked in a urine-soaked closet, fed her less than their other children, burned her with cigarettes, and beat her with thorny branches. When Raysate turned the TV on too loud in September 2001, Jefferson beat her unconscious. Knight and Jefferson did not call an ambulance for fear of the abuse being discovered, and Raysate died as a result of her injuries.
The abuse came to light when Raysate’s body was found dumped in a water-filled ditch. During the six months it took to identify her body, she was known in the media as “Angel Doe”. Her grandmother eventually identified her from a police sketch. Knight and Jefferson were arrested in March 2003 in Lafayette, Louisiana, where they had fled after the murder. Both were found guilty of injury to a child. Knight was sentenced to 50 years in prison and Jefferson was sentenced to life.
Date: September 7, 2001
Location: Houston, Texas Read More
Posted: February 9, 2015 by clmccracken
Boy by Jennifer Yanke and Stephan Alcox
A 13-year-old boy was neglected and deprived of food by his mother, Jennifer Yanke, and his stepfather Stephan Alcox. The boy had been pulled out of school and was reportedly homeschooling himself.
The boy was left alone in a feces-strewn vacant house for a month while his parents lived in a nearby hotel. The boy slept on an air mattress with only a space heater; he had no running water and little food. The abuse came to light when the boy’s grandmother called the police “after she learned that he was living alone, homeschooling himself and surviving on a diet of cereal and dry pasta.” Yanke and Alcox were both charged with abandoning and endangering a child.
Date: November 19, 2014
Location: Dallas, Texas Read More
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