A California couple and their adult daughter were arrested in San Bernardino County for allegedly abusing and torturing six foster children aged 5 to 16.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s Crimes Against Children Detail announced in a news release that it had opened an investigation into “severe and prolonged abuse and neglect” at a home on Helena Drive in Victorville, California.
The city is about 35 miles north of San Bernardino.
Kenneth Key, 60, Tina Key, 60, and Katlynn Key, 23, were all named as suspects in the case. All three were apprehended on May 12 and charged with torture. They were booked into the Central Detention Center, and their bail was set at $1 million apiece, according to police.
“The abuse included daily beatings, strangulation to the point of unconsciousness, and punishments of withholding food and water from the children for days,” the District Attorney’s office stated in the statement.
Neighbors on the neighborhood told KTLA that they only saw the youngsters as they were placed into the family’s car.
“Apart from that, these kids never went outside like other kids. “They could only go to the backyard,” one mother told the channel.
The details of the children’s maltreatment were not made public.
“Any kind of child abuse or neglect going on in a home, whether it’s a biological home, a family home, or a foster home, reach out and report that,” SBCSD spokesman Mara Rodriguez told the station. “We would much rather do an investigation and find that everything is just fine in that home than find out several years later that there was some abuse.”
Rodriguez told USA TODAY that the children were “subjected to severe trauma and physical abuse,” and that they were removed from the home when the sheriff’s department began its investigation.
Officials verified that some of the abuse may have started soon after we brought the children into the home a decade ago.
The SBCSD is still investigating the case, and anyone with more information should contact the department and ask for Katie Mettill of the Specialized Investigations Division, Crimes Against Children Detail, at 909-890-4904.
