Oh the horror!
According to the police, a Texas couple starved their 5 year-old son and kept him locked in the stairway closet.
Bradley and Tammi Bleimeyer reportedly kept the tiny boy in a little closet with just a mattress. The boy was found wearing just a diaper, his bones showing underneath his skin, after police first responded to the Spring, Texas home.
The tiny, blond-haired boy was severely underweight, his shoulder blades, ribs and vertebrae showing through his skin, when officers found him late last week.
The boy’s father, Bradley Bleimeyer, 24 and his wife, Tammi Bleimeyer, 33, the boy’s stepmother, were arrested on Friday for a charge of child endangerment.
It was not until the little boy’s teen step brother told police on Thursday about the abuse that the child was saved.
Cops responded to the family’s home in the 21500 block of Castlemont Lane in Spring last Thursday after a report of a fight, KPRC-TV reported.
There, they found Bradley Bleimeyer arguing with his 16-year-old stepson, who told officers the man was keeping his stepbrother locked in a closet. Authorities entered the house and found the closet under a stairway, with mattress inside and a lock on the door, the TV station reported.
Tammi Bleimeyer had already fled the home with the child by the time officers arrived, and both adults refused to tell cops the location of the boy.
Officers on Friday tracked the woman and her husband to a nearby motel.
The child was taken to the hospital while both parents were arrested.
“He was severely under nourished, bone sticking out, bumps, bruises. His skin was coming off on his back. It’s a horrific horrific situation,” Harris County Precinct 4 Assistant Chief Mark Herman told KHOU-TV.
Tammi Bleimeyer, who is pregnant and has five children, including the 16-year-old, was released on a $2,000 bond, the station reported.
Bradley Bleimeyer, already out on bail for a burglary arrest, was held without bond.
The child remains hospitalised.
