Parents Allowed Son To Molest, Bribe Sister With Food From Locked Refrigerator

CATOOSA COUNTY, GA — A Georgia couple was sentenced to 20 years in prison after prosecutors say they padlocked the refrigerator to limit their daughter's food intake and allowed her half-brother to bribe her with food in exchange for sexual acts.

The Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office on Monday said an unnamed couple was found guilty by a jury on March 27, following a probe that began in 2023.

The couple was not identified due to the ages of the teenage victims. The parents were accused of living with their children in deplorable conditions in a mobile home.

Prosecutors said the teenage daughter of this couple was molested by her older half-brother, which the parents were aware of took place. The parents left their daughter alone with her half-brother on a weekly basis while staying at another home they owned, according to a news release

The mobile home did not have hot water or adequate heat. The only running water in the home came from a bathtub, prosecutors added.

"Evidence showed that the home was in a state of disrepair and filth. Code Enforcement found the home to be unlivable," prosecutors said in a news release.

At the time, the father was an electrician and was earning $1,100 to $1,800 weekly after taxes, prosecutors said.

The couple would discipline their children by shooting them with Airsoft guns and restricted their daughter's food intake, prosecutors said. The couple was accused of padlocking the refrigerator to prevent the daughter from getting food, prosecutors said.

The couple was convicted of two counts of first-degree cruelty to children and two counts of second-degree cruelty to children and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, prosecutors said.

The brother was sentenced to life in prison plus 25 years, prosecutors said.

"Parents should be the first in line to protect their children, but if they fail, we will step into that breach of our most basic foundations of our community," Lookout Mountain District Attorney Clayton Fuller said in the release. "The wickedness of a parent who treats their own flesh and blood with such cruelty and neglect will be met here in northwest Georgia with the full force of justice."