Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Starving Children Run Door-to-Door For Help, Forced to Eat Feces, Handcuffed

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

Two teens escaped a Texas house of horrors, telling neighbors they were being abused. The  two 16-year-old twins (a boy and girl) arrived at a neighbor’s home in Cypress at around 5:30 a.m. The twins could be seen in the neighbor's doorbell camera video barefoot and shivering. The boy had no shirt on. The twins also said they were hungry and that they hadn't eaten in a week. The Good Samaritan said the twins told her, "that their mom kept them locked in the laundry room, naked, zip tied from the ankles and handcuffed from the wrist.”  When investigators interviewed the twins, they reportedly said they were not allowed to use a toilet and were made to drink their own urine and live in the laundry room, which was filled with feces.   Police detained the children’s mother, identified as Zaikiya Duncan, 40, along with her boyfriend, Jova Terrell, 27.   Joining Nancy Grace Today:  Sarah Ford - Legal Director, South Carolina Victim Assistance Network, SCvanLegal.org,  Former Prosecutor focusing on Crimes Against Women and Children, Facebook: "SCVAN Legal Services Program", Adjunct Professor, Claflin University & South Carolina State University Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst (Beverly Hills, CA), DrBethanyMarshall.com, New Netflix show: 'Bling Empire' (Beverly Hills) Mike Hermann - Private Investigator (California), www.hermanninvestigations.com, Former Police Lieutenant, Co-Founder of the non-profit organization "PTSD Brotherhood, Inc.", Co-Host: "PTSD Brothers: Brotherhood of Service Podcast", PTSDBrotherhood.org Dr. Free N. Hess - Pediatrician/Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Child Safety Expert & Consultant, Founder of www.PediMom.com Nick Perlin - Multimedia Journalist, WBRZ News 2 (Baton Rouge, Louisiana), Facebook: Facebook: Nick Perlin, Twitter: @nickperlin_TV, Instagram: @NickPerlin2  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Twins, shockingly thin, going door to door in a neighborhood, begging for help, many people not letting them in. When one neighbor does let them in, what unfolds is something I'll never forget. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to our friends at KHOU. It's close to 5 o'clock on Tuesday morning. Home surveillance cameras show this pair of 16-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, who have just escaped.

They spent more than half an hour going door to door, desperately seeking help. You need some help? Yes. It's not the same, please. We're too good. What? What happened? We just need someone to be right on.

No, we can't do that. Unsure of the circumstances, nearly all of the neighbors told the twins to keep moving. At about 5 30, the temperature was in the 50s. No one would take them in. 50 degrees outside and they're begging for someone to help them. A boy and a girl. Take a listen now to Matt Darnie. It was exactly 5 27 in the morning when I heard the doorbell ring. A single mother at home with her daughter was the first and only person to open the door. I just knew they were kids right away so I like quickly opened the door. I told him to come in and I quickly shut the door and I locked it. The woman who asked that we not use her name or show her face says she led the

twins to her kitchen. I sat them down. I brought them blankets, covered them up, and the first thing the little boy said was, we're starving. Basically, we're saying, like, we're hungry. Can you give me something to eat? A single mother home alone with her daughter is the only one in the entire neighborhood to let them in or to offer assistance, to do anything at all for them. Has nobody heard the story, the true story, the parable of the Good Samaritan? Well, thank heaven this single mother did. Take a listen now to our friends at ABC.

5.30 a.m. Tuesday morning, the pair approached the door of a neighbor who wants to remain anonymous. The woman taking the teens in, feeding them, giving them blankets. The brother and sister telling her they hadn't eaten in more than a, and they had unsuccessfully tried to escape. Unsuccessfully tried to escape the day before? Who would do this to the children? Two teens, barely teens, severely malnourished, and listen to this, forced to drink bleach. Had bleach poured on their genitals, a boy and a girl. They were forced to eat and drink their own urine and feces, beaten with metal rods, and fed mustard sandwiches, but only once a week?

Who, who would do this to these children? They had just managed to escape. Take a listen now to our cut for our friends at KHOU 11. Looking at the 16-year-olds, it was obvious. After getting them something to eat, she started asking questions. When the little girl was here standing, she was visibly shaking and was showing me her handcuffs. They would say, we just broke out of these. They told me that their mom kept them locked in a laundry room, naked, zip tied from the ankles and handcuffed from the wrist. They

said we would pee and poop on ourselves. And they said when we needed to bathe, the mom would let them use the dirty mop water to bathe. They didn't get a bath. They got dirty mop water. You know, I've seen a lot and prosecuted a lot of bad guys and a lot of bad women. I mean, bad things I don't even like to think about. Drowning a teen girl upside down in a bucket of water, cigarette marks on a two-year-old baby girl.

It just goes on and on. The cases I've seen investigated and or prosecuted. But this case, I just don't know what it is about it. Forcing them to stay in a room completely naked, only giving a bath occasionally and then in the dirty mop water, pouring bleach on the children's genitals, making them drink bleach, urine, eat feces. You know, you wonder what devil straight from hell would do this to another person, let alone a child, let alone two children, twins, only to find out they give

the name of the perpetrator and that name is mommy straight out to nick perlin multimedia journalist joining us from wbrz news 2 in baton rouge you can find him on facebook at nick perlin on twitter at nick perlin underscore tv nick thank you for being with us. Let's just start at the beginning with these two twins, boy, girl, just like mine, extremely thin, malnourished, going door to door. And there is ring camera video of this, Nick Perlin. Let's just start at the beginning. Kick it off at 520 a.m., Nick Perlin. Yeah, I mean, you see that surveillance video it's shocking like you said they're going door to door begging you know just asking for anybody to do

anything to help and like you said it was that one woman who you know let them in and just that surveillance video is it's really just stunning to see two teenagers looking that thin. And you can see photographs of scars around their wrists from the handcuffs. I mean, it really is just stunning to see that security video that you saw at five in the morning there. I'm taking a look at it right now. And again, it's in the low 50s. And one child doesn't have on a shirt outside. They're both freezing.

They're both begging. But nobody will let them in. Also with me in addition to Nick Perlin joining us from WBRZ2, Dr. Bethany Marshall joining us. Renowned psychoanalyst joining us from Beverly Hills star of a hit series on Netflix, Bling Empire. You can find her at drbethanymarshall.com. Dr. Bethany, I mean, if you're afraid that this is a ruse of some sort, which I understand, I would think you would at least offer them assistance. Like if they're at the front door and you're home alone,

like this single mom was with her daughter, but you want to help, give them food at the back door and blankets and coats or something hot to drink, anything, and let them go around and get it. There's more than one way to skin a cat. There's more than one way to save a life or help these children. Before I get to Mommy, who is absolutely going to hell after a pit stop in the penitentiary,

I want to talk about these neighbors who didn't do a darn thing to help. I mean, when you see the picture, they're clearly malnourished. They're pitiful. They're children. And Nancy, what's interesting about the single mom in the clip we just heard is the first thing she said was i could tell they were children and it's the single mom with her own child um in her home the one who maybe is the most vulnerable out of all the neighbors think of these really were thieves or robbers going door

to door it would be the single mom with it with a child alone at home who wouldn't open the door. But that is the person who does open the door. She sees the humanity of these children. Nancy, we've been talking so much about othering in our national discourse. Right. We're talking about what? Othering, where you treat somebody like they're not human, like they're other, like they're distinct. Othering. Othering, O-T-H-E-R. Okay, school me, Bethany. What is that? Othering is when you treat somebody because they're a different class, race, socioeconomic status, as if they don't have value and they don't have rights. That's othering.

And I think about it in terms of how we treat fellow citizens in our nation. I've never thought about it in terms of children. This is the most profound example of othering. Oh, Bethany, wait a second. I'm looking at a video of the girl. She's obviously in the home. Have you seen this, Jackie? Yes.

With a single mom who has got, it looks like a towel or a white blanket draped around her. And this is the girl because the boy didn't have on a shirt. And she's got her hands, it looks like up on the bar or the island. You know, a lot of houses

have those. We do. You have an island between the kitchen sink and the stove and then the children and then like the children can sit at the bar on stools she's got a little hands up and they are um covered in scars and it looks like scabs that have been scratched and bruises. Guys, I'm just hearing in my ear, I have Dr. Free N. Hess with us, pediatrician, pediatric emergency medicine, child safety expert consultant, and founder of pedimom.com. And tell me if I'm mispronouncing that, Dr. Hess.

P-E-D-I-M-O-M.com. Is that correct, Dr. Hess,, PD mom? That is correct. Yes, it's PD, like pediatrician and mom, because I'm also a mom. Dr. Hesse, have you seen the picture of this girl's wrists? I have. There's also a picture of the brother's's wrist as well which looks pretty similar it actually looks like there's holes puncture holes in the boy's wrists i mean on his right hand dr has for people that can't see it hopefully um that's just what i was going to say thank you for the sign jackie's holding up a sign look at his swollen hands you see the arm the forearm then the wrist starts to get a little bit swollen then you see the marks on his wrist and it looks like actual puncture holes where the girls look like scabs and in his hands and fingers especially

I don't know what you call the part of the hand between the wrist and the knuckles are completely swollen up. Let's just start with that. What does this mean? The likelihood is, I mean, just by looking at the pictures, obviously I haven't examined the child, but looking at the pictures, it looks like it was definitely long standing contraction of the wrist. Okay, what does that mean, contraction of the wrist. Okay, what does that mean, contraction of the wrist? So something, whether it be handcuffs, a zip tie, ropes, I mean, we unfortunately do see it quite often, has been tied around the wrist for long periods of time. And what can happen is that that can

start to constrict that area, which decreases blood flow distally, meaning further out to the hands and the fingers, which can cause swelling. And if you read back into some of the reports, it also says that she had admitted in the past, although I don't know if it was true of these two children, that she also did force these children to stand, to do push-ups and or plank-like movements

for so long that their hands would become swollen. And the idea that possibly they might have been doing that while their wrists were constricted or tied or bound in some way would definitely increase the chances of that being swollen but you can see by those marks that is not like not that a one time tying up of children is ever okay obviously but this is this is more than just one time this is you know you know, there's scarring there. There's changes, hypopigmentation of the skin, which means increased darkening of the skin,

which you can get from scarring over time. So there's a combination of newish looking injuries on the wrist to darkening, hypopigmentation of the skin, scarring, scabbing, all the above is kind of seen on that. So it does definitely look like it's something more long-term and pretty frequent, if not continuous. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The twin brother had deep cuts, as well as the sister, on his wrist from handcuffs. These are from actual handcuffs because they had the handcuffs with them.

I'm not sure exactly how they broke free. The two twins told the Good Samaritan mom they had just broken free from being handcuffed by their own mother. You were just hearing the voice of Dr. Free in Hess. You know, it seems to get worse and worse. Take a listen to our friends at ABC. Tonight, these are the harrowing images of a brother and sister who police say were being held captive in their own home. The images of their pleas for help were captured by a doorbell video camera. The two teens are twins. They were going door to door begging for someone to help them. There were signs on their arms.

They'd been handcuffed, both barefoot and one shirtless. They were saying that they had just gotten here from Baton Rouge, I think they said, that they just moved here and that their mom didn't disclose the address to them and so they didn't know where they lived. They did not even know their own address jackie i want to skip forward to our cut seven from khou or documents reveal how the abused twins were able to escape from their mother and boyfriend's home early tuesday morning documents state the boy found the key inside his mother's purse. He hid the key in his mouth until his mother and her boyfriend were asleep.

That's how they were able to knock on neighbors' doors for help. One mother finally let them in and called police. They literally were running for their lives. I mean, they knew that if they stayed there, what was going to happen with them. Mike Herman joining me, private investigator out of California at HermanInvestigations.com, former police lieutenant, co-founder of PTSDBrotherhood.inc. Mike Herman, thank you for being with us. It sounds like something out of a movie. The boy found the handcuff key in his mother's pocketbook and hid it in his mouth until the mom and her boyfriend go to sleep. And that's the only way they managed to get out.

Yeah, it's amazing. Unfortunately, through my career, I've investigated so many child abuse cases, and they just keep getting worse and worse you thought with the turpin case a few years ago that that wouldn't get topped and it's it's that any parent can treat their kids this way and like dr bethany was talking the with the injuries to their wrists you can look at those photographs and you can tell they're just so prolonged abuse. There's actually holes in their skin along with dried up scabs and deep, deep bruises. We also learned the little girl was wearing a plastic grocery bag as a shirt. So this boy had the wherewithal to hide the handcuffed key in his mouth in order to escape after mommy and boyfriend go to sleep in their soft king-size bed upstairs in their $600,000 home. Guys, take a listen to more.

This is Aniel Ruiz, KHOU, Hour Cut 11. According to court documents, the teens said their mother would strike them with an extension cords, curtain rods, and metal poles. The records say the boy told deputies his mom's boyfriend punched his hand last week. Injuries neighbors say were visible. Their skin, I mean the little kid had like scratches and scabs and bruises all down his arm, down the back of his body. Documents state the mother would make them drink chemicals such as bleach, Lysol, and would spray Easy Off Oven Cleaner in their mouths if they talked too much and say she would pour bleach on them, causing their skin to burn, including in their general area. Okay, I want to go now to our special guest, Dr. Free N. Hess, pediatrician and pediatric emergency medicine expert. What does that do to a child being forced to eat or drink Lysol and Easy Off? Yeah, so drinking, being forced to drink chemicals, cleaning chemicals can do some significant damage. It all depends specifically on the pH of those

chemicals. But it can cause significant burns of the mucosa, meaning the soft lining of the mouth, of the esophagus, the stomach. It can cause electrolyte imbalances. There's lots of issues it can cause, especially if it's long-term or in large amounts. Easy Off Oven Cleaner has dipropylene glycol propyl ether, isobutane, and I know that that's flammable because it has butane as part of the name. Potassium carbonate, ethanalamine, smectite clay, benzyl alcohol, sodium lauryl sarcosinate, paraffin wax, and fragrance. The main ingredient is something I've never seen before, monothelamine and diethylene. And that's what she would put in their mouth. I mean, to me, it sounds like that would

burn out your stomach the way it burns debris off the inside of your oven. Yeah. Well, and in addition to, it's not even just about your mouth, your esophagus, your stomach, especially when we're talking about sprays like that, or even other chemicals that might cause them to cough and or vomit. They can actually aspirate those chemicals as well, meaning take those chemicals and they end up getting sucked into the lungs, which can then cause lung damage as well. So, I mean, the danger of this is huge. There's no telling what long-term damage has been

done to their mouth. Think of how tender your mouth is even when you get an ulcer and they have Lysol and Easy Off Oven Cleaner sprayed and poured into their mouth and their throat float and that tender pink lining going down to your stomach and in your stomach and that's not all listen to our cut 12 the girl told investigators that her brother defecated and their mother made them both eat it and drink his urine don't understand how a mother can do this to her kids and court documents also state that teens were both given Benadryl. The boy said he was given 24 tablets, which caused him to have a seizure. After he had a seizure, he says he was only given 20 tablets to go to sleep. The girl said she was also given Benadryl to go to sleep. And I have no doubt that these kids would have

not made it alive if they had not, because they were literally skin on bones. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, Psycho Alice, joining us out of Beverly Hills, I know you recall the case that we analyzed of the military mom who had climbed high up in the military along with her husband, and he traveled all the time, and she shot both of her children dead. And she shot the daughter who was at her computer doing her homework. Both of the children were all A students in the mouth because she said that the daughter was getting, quote, mouthy.

And here we see this mother, according to the children, making them fill their mouths with Lysol or Easy Off when they quote, talked back. See, I think it's interesting with military mom that she killed them as they were about to achieve even greater success. And I think a huge emotion that leads to child abuse, we don't think about it this much, is envy and contempt. My child's beautiful. My child's developing. My child's going to become a full human being. And that's going to make me feel horrible about myself. It sounds so sort of trite and benign the way I'm saying it. But I really think that these parents, they don't want their children to thrive, to succeed, to be beautiful, to have their own voices.

This is why the mouths, the esophagus are often mutilated, that a military mom shot her daughter in the mouth. It's like, I don't want you to be a full human being. I cannot tolerate it. And besides that, when you have needs, I see you as greedy and bad. So another thing I'm going to do is I'm going to put a lock on the refrigerator. So we often see that with child abuse, that the adults will say, well, I had to put a lock on the refrigerator because they were eating too much food. So not only is there really mutilating and torturing the mouth, the esophagus, the lungs, the stomach, but there's also a deprivation of food, as if they're trying to shrink the child to as small as the child could be so that child doesn't

even take up space on this planet. I mean, it's really complex, all these motivations. You know, Dr. Bethany, it just makes me want to cry. I was thinking this morning about what I could possibly do to tempt my daughter because she is into organic eating and, you know, healthy lifestyle. She makes a certain portion on her plate, and she eats that. And I've made all sorts of desserts, Dr. Bethany. And, of course, I have to keep it away from John David because he'll eat the whole thing at once.

But finally, I found a dessert, and this is not a plug, but it's Marie Callender chocolate silk pie with a chocolate. She likes that. So I will order them at least once a week. And I'm just trying to think. I'm always thinking of something that they will like and how I can hide veggies. And here's this mom putting Easy Off oven cleaner and Lysol down their mouths. And when they do get something to eat once a week, it's a mustard relish sandwich. And Nancy, think about what we do with our children

from the time they're infants. We smile and we tell them, you're beautiful, you are the center of the world, you're mommy's little prince, you're mommy's little princess. And then after that, the first thing we want to do is feed them. We always want to feed our children. We want to make sure that they have enough nutrition. And also when we offer food,

we offer love. So to not smile, to not upregulate, to not feed, to not nurture, it really runs against the whole instinct of being human. You know, there's another dynamic, and I'm going to go to Sarah Ford on this. She is the legal director at the South Carolina Victims Assistance Network at scvanlegal.org, former prosecutor focusing on crimes on women and children, adjunct professor at South Carolina State University. Sarah, thank you so much for being

with us. I want to talk to you about the dynamic we just heard where the mom would let the boyfriend join in and beat them. I mean, the things I see mothers let their sorry husbands, lovers, boyfriends, exes do to their blood children and their adopted children. I've never seen anything like it. They let these boyfriends join in with the abuse. It's absolutely horrific, Nancy. I mean, with these types of cases, so often you see that these behaviors existed. Like in this case where, you know, this mother had been abusing these children consistently,

but also allowing their partner. You know, I think in cases that I've seen, it's become like a bonding connection for, you know, the abuser and their boyfriend or husband. And it's absolutely sickening. I mean, this is child torture. And to look at that house, I mean, Nick Perlin and Sarah Ford, Dr. Bethany, Mike Herman, Dr. Hiss, please jump in. Do not be limited by my questions to you. Nick Perlin, when I think about, okay, let me ask you another question before I go off on a tangent.

How did they escape Nick Perlin? How did they finally get out? Wait, hey, Nick, Nick, wait a minute. Take a listen to our cut 13 from KTRK. Court documents filed in Harris County include the interview the 16-year-olds gave detectives. The twins, saying they were forced to drink bleach, had corrosive oven cleaner sprayed in their mouths, and were routinely beaten and burned.

During the interview, police say the girl was wearing a gray plastic grocery bag around her neck. She said that's what she had to use as a shirt. They did not hold a single thing back. They were saying that the mom had them in handcuffs in the laundry room, that they were not allowed to eat. All he could think about was food. He said, we're starving, we're starving. Another thing I learned, Nick Pearl, and joining us from wbrz is they were given these mustard sandwiches they had

to drink water from the supply valve that feeds the washing machine yeah i mean how did they get out were they living were they forced to live in the laundry room yes so that's it looks like that's where they were supposed to live um the two twins stayed together in that um room and yeah they like you said they had to drink water from the supply valve attached to the washing machine and you know the mustard and relish sandwiches that you were talking about you're talking one to three sandwiches per week i mean those, those kids were starving. That neighbor that the patient in Houston interviewed said that they were literally skin and bones. She could see the abuse. So, yeah, it's I mean, it's stunning.

It's crazy. Nancy, it's surprising they lived. I'm surprised they live because being forced to drink easy off Oven Cleaner and Lysol and given a mustard sandwich a couple of times a week. So, Nick, how did they get out? They got out because they were able to escape. They unhandcuffed themselves and they ran. They found help somehow.

Somebody called the police. And I mean, when the police were able to finally show up to that family's home, because like you said earlier, they didn't know the address. That's when the mother, the boyfriend and the other kids were gone. But that's how the two twins were able to get out just because they were able to be, you know, unhandcuffed themselves and were lucky enough to find a good Samaritan who would help them. So I guess they snuck out while the mother and her Livian were sleeping. And by the time the cops could figure out where these children came from, because they didn't even know their address, they just moved there. And I guarantee you there's a record of abuse from wherever they came from. You're absolutely right. But that's how they got out.

They waited for mommy to fall asleep. Is that right, Nick Perlin? Yes. You're absolutely right. But that's how they got out. They waited for mommy to fall asleep. Is that right, Nick Perlin? Yes, that's absolutely right. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. What about this? Everybody jump in because I think there's a lot more to it than what we see on the surface. She forbade her children to use the bathroom. They were forced to defecate and urinate on themselves, then eat it and drink it. Then they only had dirty water from a mop bucket to wash themselves. Extreme beatings with extension cords, curtain rods, metal poles.

The boyfriend, the lover in this case, often would punch the 16-year-old boy. In a nutshell to you, Dr. Bethany, what does it mean that she did not let them go to the bathroom? They had to defecate and urinate in the laundry room, then eat it and drink it. Well, to me, that indicates sadism, that there's true pleasure in the torturing and the suffering of others, that somehow it stimulated

her well-being. It made her feel good about herself. It kind of gave her like wind beneath her wings, so to speak, to go out into the world knowing that she had these two little torture cases in her basement. And think about this. There's five other children in the house that apparently looked well-fed, I'm thinking. I haven't read any reports about that, but that they were well-fed, that they were taken care of. So this is a typical dynamic in these abusive torture chamber households where the parents choose one or two children to torture, to beat, and then they choose the other children to elevate.

I had a case like this in my practice where, you know, an adult survivor of child sexual abuse and physical abuse, mental, all of that. And she was starved and she would have to sit on the floor in the kitchen while her mother fed her sister beautiful food. And she could smell the food wafting and she was so hungry salivating all of that the sister got love and she got hate and i've still never been able to figure it out a hundred percent it's inexplicable as we've been talking about this is something else that's hard to figure out the public persona the mother exuded the exact opposite take a listen to our cut 21 from our friends at crime online just over a year ago the 40 year old mom was posting to tiktok clips of herself dancing

with her five youngest children the oldest set of twins cannot be seen in the videos her post to tiktok lasted about three months beginning in march 2020, with Duncan posting 10 videos in all. Duncan posted to Instagram a little longer. Those posts ended in June of 2021, but seemed to show a group of happy-looking, healthy children dancing. Zakiya Duncan's last post praised her now 12-year-old son, Javion, a twin himself.

An Instagram photo from April 2021 shows four of Duncan's sons sitting around a kitchen table eating candy. The caption says, I love spending time with my boys. A month later, in May 2021, she posted a photo of her youngest son, Nicholas, congratulating him for graduating from Ideas Academy School. So she's posting all these videos of her dancing with her children around the house and loving mom videos and posts. Not only that, she forced the children to read letters expressing their love for her on Mother's Day. And she posted it on Insta, a series of wildly misleading posts depicting a happy, loving family.

And also, on the outside, you'd never know what's going on on the inside. Take a listen to our friends at Crime Online in Cut 22. It is believed the family only moved into the Houston neighborhood this summer. The home has four bedrooms, three and a half baths, and includes a formal living and dining room. There is also a covered patio, two-car attached garage, and access to a community pool and water park. It's not yet known whether Duncan and her boyfriend bought or rented the house. The house had sold in late July and was valued between $552,000 and $627,000. A $600,000 house, nearly three quarters of a million dollar house,

and she's beating, handcuffing her twins to the point that they are malnourished and close to death. It reminds me of the Turpin family, the House of Horrors. Take a listen to our cut 14b from ACGTN.n officials say when they entered the turpin home they found a modern day horror foul smell extremely dirty conditions and they say it was immediately clear that the siblings were malnourished authorities say they found three of the children shackled to their beds with chains and padlocks kept in dark and unclean conditions inside this riverside County, California home. Deputies located 12 children inside the house as young as two years old.

While the family kept this active Facebook page, which appears to show a happy group, trips, vacations, smiling faces, authorities discovered that seven of the children pictured appeared so malnourished that they did look like children. They were actually adults. The oldest is 29 years old. That mom, the turpin mom, would post pictures of the children on trips in matching outfits. The reality is they were being beaten and starved and shackled to their beds. Joining me, everybody, Nick Perlin from Baton Rouge WBRZ. You, Nick, know that this mom has prior incidents of child abuse. Yet here she is torturing the children, making them eat their own poop and drink their own urine, handcuffing them, starving them, letting the boyfriend join in.

What was her prior? Yeah, so in 2012, she had a child abuse case back here in Baton Rouge. And in that document, they said that these children had burns to their feet and their genitals. And it really is, like you said, crazy because once we dug more into her background, at the production meeting the next day after this news broke we were all kind of sitting around going how did she get these kids back especially after you know she was charged and arrested on uh some on in a child abuse case so it's just it is

interesting how she was able to get these kids back and then move into that beautiful home four bedroom three and a half bathroom yet these two kids are malnourished and just in really bad condition got a question for you nick perlin where did the prior incident occur where she was charged with cruelty to children yet the children were given right back to her that was, I believe that was in Baton Rouge as well. So it looked like she lived in Baton Rouge. There was issues with her child abuse history while she was here. Got the kid back.

How is that happening? How is she getting the children back? Sarah Ford, why does D-Facts keep giving the children back to mommy? You know, it's become something where, you know, Child Protective Services wants to reunify families. And from the outside, that seems like a good idea. And that's okay for some families, but certainly not for all. And in cases of severe abuse, which is, you know, child being burned on their genital.

Horrible. I mean, horrible, horrible abuse. Now, catch this, Sarah Ford. Hold that up again, Jackie. Everybody, I want you to hear what some lame prosecutor gave mom the first time. And when you hear what she did the first time, you're going to spin. She pled to a lesser offense, and her sentence was parenting classes. Now, I want you to hear exactly what she did.

This is what Nick Perlin is telling us about. Take a listen to our cut 23, our friends at Crime Online. Duncan was accused of child abuse 10 years ago in Louisiana. A five-year-old child was taken from school to a local hospital to be treated for burns to his feet genitals and other body parts doctors determined the injuries were likely the result of being burned by hot water the boy also had bruises on his torso back hip and buttocks when police went to duncan's home they found a 20 month old child wrapped in clothing with his hands bound reportedly the only other person in the home was a child's four-year-old brother duncan admitted to police that she routinely disciplined one child by making him get into a

push-up position for up to an hour this causing the child's hands to swell the child was also forced to sleep on the closet floor the door of the closet would be blocked by boards to keep the child from escaping and stealing food from the kitchen. Two other children with signs of abuse were removed from the home. Duncan was charged with cruelty to juveniles, but the children were ultimately returned to her. The children given back, and it sounds like it was the same boy, Jackie, because at that time he was five. That was 10 years ago. Now we've got a 15-year-old boy twin. Same M.O. modus operandi. She was pouring boiling water on his genitals, and now she's pouring bleach on his genitals. Okay, I only

have one thing to say. Baton Rouge, you let her go 10 years ago, and I would like you to think tonight about the pain you have caused these children. Zakiya Duncan, Jova Terrell, go to hell. Hopefully, Baton Rouge prosecutors can do a better job this time than they did last time. And God bless these children. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime crime story signing off. Goodbye.

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