A Bogart couple has been indicted on charges they handcuffed their 12-year-old son in a closet, made him go naked at home, shot him with a pellet gun and deprived him of food.
Law enforcement officials have called the abuse torture.
An Oconee County grand jury on Friday indicted the man and woman on five counts of false imprisonment and cruelty to children, plus two counts of aggravated assault.
Jurors charged the mother with two additional counts of aggravated assault for allegedly pepper-spraying her son.
The Athens Banner-Herald is not naming the parents or publishing their jail booking photos to protect the identity of the 12-year-old, who was abused while he and a younger brother lived with their parents in Clarke and Oconee counties.
The boys are the woman's children and the man's stepsons, officials said.
The couple has not been charged in Clarke County, but prosecutors are expected to present evidence to a grand jury soon.
The alleged abuse was "systemic" and happened while the boy and his 6-year-old brother attended school in both Clarke and Oconee counties, officials said.
The older boy kept silent, but his younger brother told a teacher at his school in December, three weeks after the family moved to Oconee County from an extended- stay hotel off Macon Highway in Athens, Oconee County Sheriff Scott Berry said.
Sheriff's deputies arrested the man and woman hours later, and the state Division of Family and Children Services placed the boys with foster families.
Investigators examined the older boy and found marks on his body, including his genitals, where he was shot with a pellet gun a hundred times or more, according to the sheriff.
The boy told forensic interviewers that his parents handcuffed him in a closet and tied him up with things like shoelaces, Berry said.
While handcuffed to a clothes rack in a locked closet, the boy had only a plastic container to use as a toilet, the sheriff said.
The indictments also accuse the couple of "substantially denying food" to the boy.
While investigating the abuse report, deputies seized the pellet gun, handcuffs and ligatures from the couple's home off Monroe Highway, between Georgia Highway 316 and Dials Mill Road. The mother had the handcuffs and pepper spray from her job as a jailer with the Walton County Sheriff's Office, though she was fired in the wake of the abuse accusation.
When she pepper-sprayed her son, according to the indictment, she would not allow the boy to wash his eyes.
Neither parent was charged with abusing the younger child, but Berry said it's not uncommon for parents to abuse one child and not others.
Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Tuesday, February 24, 2009
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