‘Constantly recorded’: Teacher and wife allegedly kept their children under surveillance and locked up for days at a time while ‘sometimes’ denying them food and bathroom access

Steven Griffin, on the left; Anissa Griffin, on the right.

Left to right: Steven Griffin and Anissa Griffin (Cobb County Sheriff’s Office).

A Georgia teacher and his wife were arrested last month for allegedly keeping their children locked up in their bedrooms for days and “sometimes” denying them food, according to Peach State police.

Steven Griffin, 53, and Anissa Griffin, 53, each stand accused of one count of eavesdropping–surveillance and four counts each of child cruelty in the second degree, both of which are felonies, according to arrest warrants filed in Cobb County Magistrate Court.

The husband previously worked as an English teacher at North Cobb High School but resigned in the aftermath of his arrest on April 30.

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Investigators say the couple “constantly recorded” the goings-on within the bedrooms of their four teenage children for at least a 17-month time period spanning January 2024 until the end of April this year, according to copies of the warrants obtained by the Marietta Daily Journal and Atlanta-based Fox affiliate WAGA.

The couple’s 18-year-old daughter said she was locked inside her room “for a month or two” and had to request permission to leave — even to use the bathroom, according to the charging documents. The 18-year-old, as well as her 14-year-old and 15-year-old siblings, allegedly said the cameras in their bedrooms made them feel uncomfortable, particularly when they were changing clothes.

Another child allegedly said he was forced to live in the unfinished basement of the family’s house on Owens Landing Trail in Kennesaw — a medium-sized suburb of Atlanta located in the far northwestern reaches of the broader metro area. The boy said the basement lacked heat and air conditioning.

The boy also said he had to request permission to use the bathroom, and was sometimes denied such permission to the point of physical pain, according to the warrants. This child allegedly told investigators his parents confined him for up to five days at a time, and sometimes denied him food.

The Griffins are alleged to have kept track of their children — and to have enforced discipline — by way of alarms on each bedroom door that alerted when they were opened, authorities claim.

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