Couple held for caging daughter

2013-01-30 11:00

Cindy Patriarchias. (Las Cruces Police Department/ AP)

Los Angeles - A US woman and her boyfriend have been arrested for leaving their 8-year-old adoptive daughter locked in a cage while they went out to see a movie, police said on Tuesday.

Cindy Patriarchias, aged 33, and Edmond Gonzales, aged 37, were both charged with child negligence after the girl, who has a developmental condition, was found in the homemade wooden cage in their mobile home in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

The cage measured roughly 74cm wide, 152cm long, and 126cm tall, had two latches on the door and a baby crib's mattress inside on the floor, said a Las Cruces Police Department statement.

Police were called to the couple's home on Friday evening, after being tipped off to the girl suspected of being left home alone while the couple took her three other children to see a movie at a nearby school.

Officers "found the mobile home to be dark and it appeared to be unoccupied", said the statement. "Nearly an hour later Patriarchias returned home and allowed officers inside.

No injuries

"While checking the home an officer discovered a large wooden cage in the corner of a bedroom. Inside the cage was Patriarchias' 8-year-old daughter," it added.

The girl was taken out and given medical care. She "did not appear to have any physical injuries as a result of the containment, but detectives learned that she suffers from microcephaly", it said.

Microcephaly is a condition in which the head of the sufferer is markedly smaller than average.

Patriarchias' estranged husband had called police when he turned up at the school movie screening and the girl was not with her mother and the other siblings.

She was in the process of adopting the girl, who was taken into care, while she and her live-in boyfriend were booked into a detection centre, said the police statement.

- SAPA