A Mountain Home couple has been arrested for keeping their 15-year-old son locked naked in a bathroom, making him sleep on a pallet and only letting him out to go to school. A total of 114 felony counts each have been filed against the boy’s mother, 41-year-old Jaclyn Machelle Barnett, and his stepfather, 40-year-old Daniel Alan Wright.According to the probable cause affidavit from the Mountain Home Police Department, officers were called to the family’s apartment Saturday afternoon for cries of help from an upstairs apartment. The responding officer went to the reporting party’s master bedroom where the boy could be heard talking and said he was trapped in the bathroom upstairs and could not get out.
When the officer went upstairs, he was met by two juveniles, ages 10 and 11, who said their parents were at work. When asked about the child in the bathroom, they acted as if they didn’t know who it would be.
The officer went to the master bedroom and discovered a ratchet strap attached to a bedpost and the other end to the bathroom door. The officer removed the strap and opened the door to find the naked 15-year-old boy who said he had been put in the bathroom Friday night by his mom. There were no clothes in the bathroom.
The other children indicated they sleep in bunk beds but the victim sleeps on a pallet in the bathroom.
During interviews with police, both Barnett and Wright said they did not know why the victim was locked in the bathroom but said it must have been the kids playing. The other children were asked to use the ratchet strap, but could not perform the task. Barnett and Wright then said the ratchet strap was to keep the kids out of the bathroom due to a leaky faucet.
During a forensic interview with the victim, he said he does not have a bedroom and the only food he gets is at school. A check of school attendance records indicate he has been in school 112 days since January.
Further investigation revealed since 2013, 29 cases of maltreatment have been opened involving the victim. The cases include maltreatment, inadequate supervision, failure to provide food, failure to provide essential needs, extreme or repeated cruelty and failure to protect. The cases were opened after calls were made by mandated reporters and anonymous callers to the Arkansas Department of Human Services Child Abuse Hotline.
Both Barnett and Wright are facing 112 counts of first degree false imprisonment along with one count each of endangering the welfare of a minor and permitting abuse of a minor. Police told KTLO, Classic Hits and The Boot News the 112 counts of false imprisonment are the days they could confirm because those are the days the victim was let out for school. Barnett is being held on $50,000 bond. Wright is free after posting $50,000 bond.
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