A foster mother in the US has been charged with child abuse and endangerment as authorities investigate whether she traded an adopted daughter to someone for a monkey and mistreated other children in her care.
Brenda Deutsch from Winfield, Missouri, has been jailed on a $US250,000 ($407,000) bond since her arrest over the weekend, with her next court appearance set for next Tuesday.
No lawyer is listed for the 70-year-old in online court records. The 1500-person town Winfield is about 72km north-west of central St Louis.
Lincoln County prosecutor Mike Wood said on Wednesday that the woman had been a foster or adoptive parent to about 200 children over a span of more than a decade.
His office wrote in seeking a cash-only bond that authorities had received information that some of those children suffered physical and emotional abuse similar to the teen at the center of the case.
That girl told authorities she was beaten with wooden trim, shoes and a paddle, a detective with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office wrote in the probable cause statement. The girl said she tried to tell people what was happening but that no one believed her.
In February, a deputy from the sheriff’s office who was working as a school resource officer in Missouri was contacted about the girl missing classes, the probable cause statement said. While investigating, the deputy was told of a rumour that the girl was traded for an exotic animal to someone in Texas.
The deputy asked authorities in Texas to check on the girl. Child welfare officials in Texas took her into protective custody, and Wood said she was doing well in a group home there.
Wood said the suspect and the woman whom the girl was staying with in Texas knew each other because both own exotic animals. He said two witnesses came forward and said they were asked to take the girl to Texas and return with a monkey.
He said investigators are trying to firm up if that was just a joke or if it was actually a trade.
“There’s some smoke there,” Wood said. “We just got to find out if there’s fire, and it’ll take us some time. But there’s at least two witnesses who are coming forward saying that that was the case. As crazy as it sounds, we’ve had a few human trafficking cases in the past, so we’re treating it seriously.”
According to the probable cause statement, the girl said the woman she was staying with in Texas worked out of town and left her for days at a time to take care of exotic animals. The girl said she wasn’t subjected to forced labour or sexual abuse.
The woman told a detective she was friends with the girl’s adoptive mother and took her in to give the pair a break from each other. The girl stayed there for over a month, Wood said. When authorities interviewed the woman, she said she no longer wanted the girl there, but the girl’s mother wouldn’t make arrangements to bring her home, the probable cause statement said.
Charging documents describe the girl’s living conditions there as unsanitary and said she was inadequately supervised.
The prosecutor’s office said in a Facebook post that more charges were expected.
