The mother mocked the children, forced them to imitate illnesses, say the policemen of MN

The children wore casts and braces they didn’t need for injuries caused by a disease they don’t have, but played along with their mother’s make-up out of fear for years, Minnesota investigators say.

Their bones are not fragile, even though that’s what they told the doctors and nurses and others, because the punishment for not pretending was real and painful, three children the Crow Wing County Sheriff’s Office said.

In their Crosslake home, they lived mostly in their rooms, isolated unless their mother demanded something from them or she again decided to bring them out into the cold, nearly naked, until their bodies burned and ached, police said. They were beaten with cords and cables, thrown and strangled for one reason or another, lived in fear and lies, they told investigators in an interview on November 21.

McClatchy News is not identifying the 32-year-old suspect to protect the identities of the juveniles, who are identified only as Child 1, Child 2 and Child 3 in the probable cause statement by investigators.

Sometimes their rooms weren’t clean enough, so she would grab them by the throat and squeeze them, the 8-year-old girl told police. 3. Their kicking feet didn’t stop her. She released her grip just as they were about to pass out, leaving them gasping for air as their cloudy eyes slowly found focus.

Her 11-year-old brother, Child 1, recalled numerous visits to doctors’ offices and hospitals.

He forced himself to cough or vomit as his mother demanded, or pretend to break a bone, he told investigators. His mom took medical supplies during these visits so she could put a fake cast on him.

She often drew blood from Child 2, a 9-year-old boy, usually on days he was at a doctor’s appointment, the siblings told police.

“She kept doing it and told me not to tell anyone,” the boy told investigators. It made him feel “sick-sleepy.”

“I was never safe,” he said.

He was forced to use a wheelchair at home whenever his father was around — even though he didn’t need one — and was not allowed to eat solid food, according to the alleged reason. Instead, investigators say his mother fed him intravenously using a PICC line, which functions similarly to an IV.

The boy said “his body was sad and his body was roaring” with hunger, the documents said. Sometimes he tried to sneak real food into his room.

“But he (his mother and father) searched his room and after they found what they were looking for, he received many beatings,” the probable cause statement said.

He had no bed and slept on the floor.

In addition, the mother forced the boy to say nasty words to the father to anger him, his sister told the investigation. Their mother “always wanted Baby 2 to get into trouble,” the girl said, adding that she often heard screams coming from his room.

Police became aware of the abuse after launching an investigation earlier this year following Child 2’s hospital visit in March regarding the level of hemoglobin in his blood.

His hemoglobin dropped, but after monitoring, investigators say the only explanation was that “someone was removing blood from his body,” the documents state.

Their mother blamed the hospital, saying they were taking too much of the boy’s blood. But on November 21, the investigators talked to her children, who told about the torture they were living in.

Investigators also learned the 32-year-old received a total of $35,000 from the state of Minnesota and several nonprofits to help care for Child 2, the documents said.

She was booked into the Crowe County Jail Nov. 23 and faces three counts of child torture and three counts of stalking, records show.

Haradok v Crosslake is 144 miles northwest of downtown Minneapolis.

This story was originally published November 27, 2022 at 11:40 am.