A couple in Anderson, Indiana is in jail on charges that they committed one of the most horrific crimes uncovered in recent memory. Police say that they starved their 15-year-old granddaughter until she was basically skin and bones by the time she was rescued.
On Monday, several concerned relatives brought the girl to St. Vincent Regional Hospital in Anderson for treatment. She’d fallen earlier that day and didn’t seem to be getting better. Hospital personnel were so horrified by what they saw that they called the Anderson police’s child trauma unit. When police arrived at the hospital, they found the girl lying on a cot and on oxygen. According to a police affidavit, the girl was so thin that “her bones were protruding more than her flesh.” She was also so badly malnourished that she weighed only 35 pounds–roughly what a healthy five-year-old should weigh, but nowhere near what a 15-year-old should weigh. According to Anderson police detective Joel Sandefur, she looked like “a Holocaust victim.” Her condition was so severe that she was airlifted to Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis.
When police searched the girl’s house, they found out that her grandfather and legal guardian, Steve Sells, locked her in a room for most of the day–ostensibly to protect himself. Sells claimed that the girl, who has special needs and hasn’t been to school since 2010, was very strong and came at him with a knife at least once. But that hardly seems believable. Sells weighs 225 pounds, while according to Sells’ wife, Joetta, the girl weighed only 95 pounds as late as 2013. Additionally, the room was covered with feces and had only a space heater to keep it warm. When asked about the girl’s alarmingly low weight, Sells produced a letter dated from 2011 that said the girl had a genetic disorder that kept her from gaining weight. Police didn’t buy it, especially after Sells told them that she had last seen a doctor in 2012 and hasn’t had a nutritional supplement since her Medicaid ran out. They also found his claims hard to believe after a four-year-old girl staying at the house told police that she saw the teen sticking her fingers through the door trying to get out, and recalled Sells dragging the girl by the hair on several occasions.
It’s not the first time that the Sellses have been under the microscope for how they treated the girl. In 2010, a doctor questioned the Sellses about concerns that the girl was malnourished. The Sellses were defensive, prompting the doctor to report her concerns to the Madison County Department of Child Services. In what looks like an egregious fail–to say the least–a juvenile court case was filed in 2011, but DCS abruptly dismissed it before a judge could even hear the case.
Even hardened police officers and prosecutors are stunned by what has emerged. Sandefur said that “we wouldn’t accept treatment of an animal this way, let alone a human being.” Madison County prosecutor Rodney Cummings wants to know how it was possible for this horror to have happened without anyone noticing. He’s never seen anything like it in 35 years as a prosecutor. Indeed, the discovery came as a surprise to neighbors. The girl had almost no contact with the public, and several neighbors recalled that Sells asked motorcyclists to keep the volume down because his granddaughter had special needs.
Steve Sells was arrested that night on charges of neglect of a dependent, battery, and criminal confinement. The next day, Joetta Sells was arrested on charges of neglect of a dependent and battery. Joetta Sells was ?released on bond on Thursday, but could be rejoining her husband in jail as early as Friday, when Madison County prosecutors plan to file formal charges. Additionally, the Sellses may have some explaining to do about the $720 per month that they received to provide for the girl’s care. It’s pretty obvious that none of it went toward food or medical care. Given what they did to this girl, I have to hope that prosecutors find a way to keep these two locked up for as long as legally possible.
It was initially feared that the girl wouldn’t survive. However, according to Sandefur, while she’s recovering well so far, her condition is still very much day-to-day, and she’s still too weak to walk. Hopefully her malnourishment is something that can be reversed. While those wounds can be healed, the emotional wounds will likely take much longer. She’s going to need counseling for a very long time–possibly the rest of her life.
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Darrell Lucus, also known as Christian Dem in NC on Daily Kos, is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.
