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Two 16-year-old twins in Texas were seen on video making a brave escape from imprisonment by their allegedly abusive mother and her boyfriend.
The breakout was caught via Ring camera footage that saw the twins, who have not been named, run from their Houston home Tuesday in an attempt to get someone to call the police.
The boy wasn’t wearing a shirt and both of the siblings were barefoot, the neighbor who eventually let the pair inside told KHOU. The kids told police their mother and her boyfriend had left them in a room and forced them to eat and drink their own waste, refusing to let them use the toilet.
The woman who found them added: ‘They would only feed them a sandwich, only if they were quiet the whole day, if they made any type of noise they wouldn’t be fed. How a mother could do this to her kids and… I feel like my tears are out of frustration anger and sadness.’
Louisiana State Police soon tracked down their mother, 40-year-old Zaikiya Duncan, and her boyfriend, 27-year-old Jova Terrell, at a traffic stop in Baton Rouge. Both are charged with injury to a child and will be brought back to Houston. At least five other children were rescued by police, one of whom was still with Duncan and Terrell, while the other four had been left with relatives.
Two 16-year-old twins in Texas were seen on video making a brave escape from imprisonment by their allegedly abusive mother and her boyfriend
Zaikiya Duncan (pictured) has a history of prior child abuse allegations
Duncan’s boyfriend, 27-year-old Jova Terrell (pictured) was also arrested
Two 16-year-old twins in Texas were seen on video making a brave escape from imprisonment by their allegedly abusive mother and her boyfriend
The woman who eventually found the twins, who also went identified, said she discovered them in appalling shape: ‘They were so skinny and so frail. They just looked like they had been through a lot. They told me that their mom kept them locked in the laundry room, naked, zip tied from the ankles and handcuffed from the wrist’
They found the twins, a boy and a girl, in terrible shape, with ‘marks on their wrists, pretty deep marks from the handcuffs,’ according to a county spokesperson
The two twins ‘were bruised and malnourished in our eyes’ when police finally got to them
The kids showed the woman who found them that they had just broken free from being handcuffed by their mother
The children spent a half hour going door-to-door in their Houston-area neighborhood desperate for help
The two can be seen going door-to-door in their neighborhood trying to find someone to help for half an hour in the early morning hours Tuesday, with several neighbors, unsure what to make of the situation, telling the kids to keep moving.
A voice can eventually heard on one of the doorbell cameras asking the kids: ‘Do you need help?’ with one of the kids answering: ‘Please help us. We just need somewhere to be right now.’
The woman who eventually found the twins, a single mother at home with her daughter who also went unidentified, said she discovered them in appalling shape:
‘They were so skinny and so frail. They just looked like they had been through a lot. They told me that their mom kept them locked in the laundry room, naked, zip tied from the ankles and handcuffed from the wrist.’
Duncan is currently listed as being in a Baton Rouge prison on charges of being a fugitive. Terrell’s whereabouts are not known.
Photos showed the disturbing bodily harm Duncan had allegedly subjected her children to
The breakout was caught via Ring camera footage that saw the twins, who have not been named, run from their Houston home Monday in an attempt to get someone to call the police
A voice can eventually heard on one of the doorbell cameras asking the kids: ‘Do you need help?’ with one of the kids answering: ‘Please help us. We just need somewhere to be right now’
The two can be seen going door-to-door in their neighborhood trying to find someone to help for half an hour in the early morning hours Tuesday, with several neighbors, unsure what to make of the situation, telling the kids to keep moving
Duncan is currently listed as being in a Baton Rouge prison on charges of being a fugitive. Terrell’s whereabouts are not known
Police set off an Amber Alert for the twins’ five other siblings, ages 7 to 14, who were found safe a day later in Louisiana. The twins said that while it was less than what they received, their 12-year-old twin brothers had also been abused.
Only one child was with the couple when they were arrested. The other four boys were later found safe with relatives in Louisiana. All seven children were placed in Child Protective Service custody, according to authorities.
Police said that they may even have another child, an 18-year-old boy, still missing, according to NBC News.
The children’s mother has a history of child abuse, according to court documents. Duncan had one of her children hospitalized after burns were found on his feet and genitals from hot water.
When police arrived at the family home in Louisiana, they found a baby wrapped in clothing with his hands bound.
Duncan admitted to regularly forcing at least one her children to stay in a push-up position for an hour, causing their hands to swell. She also made the child sleep on the floor of a closet.
She was charged at the time with child cruelty but eventually had her children returned to her.
The family had recently been moved to Texas and the twins were not even sure of their address. No one has been able to find out exactly how long they had been living there.
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