TOQUERVILLE, Utah, Feb. 14, 2017 (Gephardt Daily) — The father of a 12-year-old boy who weighed 30 pounds after police said he was starved and confined in a dark bathroom for about a year now faces child abuse charges in the case.
Russell Orin Jaynes, 40, was charged Tuesday with child abuse, a third-degree felony. The charges come a little more than a month after his wife, 36-year-old Brandy K. Jaynes, was arrested and charged with intentional child abuse causing serious injury, a second-degree felony.
The boy’s living conditions were discovered by police after his father reportedly found the boy, cleaned him up and took him to an emergency room. Soon after, police obtained a warrant to search the family home, on Shangri La Lane, in Toquerville.
The boy had been locked in a darkened, feces-strewn bathroom, police said. Empty bean cans were scattered around. A mounted surveillance camera and a computer app allowed Brandy Jaynes to monitor the child without entering the room. A baby monitor was duct taped to a shower ledge.
Two other children who lived in the house had not been abused.
When Brandy Jaynes was arrested, her relationship with her husband was unclear, and it was believed she and Russell might be estranged and living apart.
At a Tuesday court hearing seeking reduction of the $20,000 bail set for Brandy Jaynes, her attorney, Ed Flint, said Russell Jaynes was living in the family residence during his son’s confinement, and was aware of what was going on.
“There was no rescue here,” Flint said. “He knew where this child was. There’s no ‘found’ here. He knew where to find his child.” Flint also questioned why Russell Flint didn’t “rescue” his son six months earlier.
Brandy Jaynes’ bail was not reduced.
Support, including gifts and warm words for the boy, has come from around the world since word of his captivity first spread, and law officers described the abuse as “horrific.” Outrage for his captor or captors has been widespread.
The victim reportedly has been released from the hospital and released to foster care. The boy has not yet regained full use of his limbs, but is attending school, studying at a second-grade level because he was at that point when he was pulled out of school.
This is just too sad. Anyone knowingly doing this to a child deserves the harshest penalty. Or better yet live like the abused person. Shame on them.