Megan Farr (left) and Gunnar Farr (Angelina County Jail).
A Texas mother and stepfather both entered guilty pleas after being accused of tying their children down and forcing them to get tattooed.
Megan Farr, 29, and Gunnar Farr, 25, both pleaded guilty in separate court appearances two years after being arrested for restraining Megan Farr’s children — who were 5 and 9 years old at the time — and tattooing them at their home in Zavalla, a city some 130 miles northeast of Houston. According to an arrest affidavit obtained by KTRE, a local ABC affiliate, the biological father of the children noticed the tattoos and reported what he saw to Child Protective Services.
Megan Farr and Gunnar Farr then allegedly attempted to remove the children’s tattoos by scraping their skin raw and scrubbing the spots with lemon juice, according to the arrest affidavit.
In its coverage of the case in April 2023, KTRE reported that the children told others that they had been tied up with rope by their mother and stepfather, blindfolded, and gagged while their parents tattooed them. The Zavalla Police Department’s then-Interim Chief James Denby told KTRE at the time that friends of the couple were in the house at the time the incident occurred.
According to the arrest affidavit, Megan Farr told her former husband and father of her children that she had tattooed the kids, after which she “laughed about it and drove away.” Gunnar Farr also spoke with the kids’ father and told them the tattoos were made with a staple.
Denby described the injuries to the children after the Farrs attempted to remove the tattoos, telling KTRE, “It appeared that the flesh was removed from the body at the tattoo’s location. And this happened about the time CPS became involved.”
The Farrs were both arrested on April 24, 2023 and posted bond after being charged with unlawful restraint and bodily injury to a child.
Gunnar Farr pleaded guilty on March 19 and was sentenced to two years for the restraint charge and five years for each of the four bodily injury charges, to be served concurrently.
Megan Farr pleaded guilty Thursday to injuring a child and will be sentenced at a later date.
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