Police say a couple in northern Florida routinely beat and shocked their two adopted children with what appears to be stun guns.
A Gainesville Police Department report says a medical exam revealed severe scarring, bruising and disfigurement on both children aged 8 and 10 years old.
The two children fled from the couple’s care last week and a concerned resident contacted police.
The children were also malnourished and described being fed only bread and water and occasional scraps.
29-year-old Samuel Hollie and 32-year-old Brandi Hollie were charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse and two counts of child neglect.
Police: Florida couple beat, used stun gun on adopted kids
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Police say a couple in northern Florida routinely beat and shocked their two adopted children with what appears to be stun guns. The Gainesville Sun reports that the children we…
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Last Friday, The two children were dropped off at their uncle’s house before the Hollies went to work, according to a Gainesville police arrest report.
The children ran away from the uncle’s house to a nearby apartment complex, the report said. They remained for several hours before a concerned resident called law enforcement.
The children told police they didn’t know where their parents were and didn’t want to go home because they had been abused.
The children, in the Hollies’ custody since 2015, told investigators they had been hit, that one of them was “drowned” in a bathtub with water poured over his head and that both had been burned or shocked with what they believed was a Taser, in addition to other abuses.
The children described being fed a bread-and-water diet with occasional scraps form the Hollies’ dinners. Police reported that the children appeared malnourished.
A medical exam revealed severe scarring, bruising and disfigurement to both children’s bodies, the report said.
Authorities contacted the children’s previous foster parents, who said the children did not have any bodily injuries while under their care. Medical exams from 2015, before they were in the Hollies’ care, showed no bruising or other injuries, the report said.
The Hollies told police that they had used corporal punishment, but said scarring on one child was due to his life before they were part of it. They also said other scars on the children — which police described as “distinct circular scars” consistent with marks from a Taser — were from bedbugs.
Gainesville children, 8 and 10, flee to safety, describe home of horrors
Police say children appear malnourished, have scars consistent with torture
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