Update: boy found in basement says he was abused daily
A Detroit boy who was found in his parent’s basement after a two-week search for the child says he was abused daily.
Charlie Bothuell V, 12, was discovered late last month.
Twice a day, every day, Charlie Bothuell V told authorities, he had to complete workouts: 100 pushups, 200 sit-ups, 100 jumping jacks, 25 curls on each arm with a 25-pound weight and thousands of revolutions on an elliptical machine.
If he didn’t finish the workout in under an hour, the 12-year-old said he “would have to do it again,” according to a court petition filed this week in Wayne County’s juvenile court.
The petition, provided to the Free Press by the state Attorney General’s Office, details abuse allegations made by Charlie — who was found barricaded in the basement of his Detroit home last month, days after going missing — against his father and stepmother.
Hearings are scheduled for Thursday. Judges are expected to take the petition and another regarding Charlie’s two younger siblings into consideration.
In one of the petitions, the Department of Human Services requests that the court terminate the parental rights of his father, Charlie Bothuell IV and place him in his mother’s care.
Charlie alleges that he has been disciplined with a PVC pipe, sometimes to the point where he was too sore to sit or walk, punched by his stepmother, among other things.
Charlie also says that it was his stepmother, Monique Dillard-Bothuell, who put him in the basement on June 14 after accusing him of lying to her about completing his evening workout. He says he heard his stepmother go upstairs and tell his father that “she looked everywhere.”
Check back for updates on this very strange case.
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