An Alabama woman pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated child abuse Thursday in the case of her 13-year-old son, who was found naked and chained to a staircase and forced to sleep in a dog crate.
Danielle Nicole Martin, 32, entered the guilty plea to aggravated child abuse Thursday afternoon before Circuit Judge Sibley Reynolds of the 19th Judicial Circuit, the Montgomery Advertiser reported.
Danielle Martin, Joshua Daniel Martin, 26, Vickie Seale Higginbottom, 58, Matthew Allen Phillips, 29, and Douglas Gene Phillips, 38. were charged with torture and willful abuse of a child under 18 in September by the Autauga County Sheriff's Office, WFSA reported.
"I made bad decisions and bad judgments," Martin said in court Thursday, according to the Advertiser. "And I didn't stop some things."
That led to a testy response from Reynolds, the newspaper reported.
“What you just said means to me that you let him use magic markers to write on the walls,” Reynolds said. “Unless you tell me what the color of the markers were and which wall he marked on, I’m not interested. Now is the time for you to tell me what you did and make it right.”
Credit: Autauga County Sheriff's Office
Credit: Autauga County Sheriff's Office
“I had problems with my son for a long time, and I wasn’t getting the help I asked for,” Martin said. “Some decisions were made that shouldn’t have been made and I didn’t fight to stop some things that shouldn’t have happened…”
“Like chaining him to the door with a padlock?” Reynolds said.
“There were other incidents,” she said. “But he was chained at the ankles when I was arrested.”
Reynolds set sentencing for Aug. 15, the Advertiser reported. Martin could face up to 20 years in prison.
The four co-defendants in the case pleaded not guilty and had trials set for early July, the newspaper reported.
Court records show that Danielle Martin, Joshua Martin and Higginbotham allegedly performed the abusive acts on the boy. The others were charged as accomplices because they lived in the home at the time of the alleged abuse occurred and did nothing to stop it, according to the Advertiser.
Danielle Martin and Higginbotham remain in the Autauga Metro Jail in lieu of $60,000 bond apiece. Joshua Martin is out on bond but where a court-ordered ankle monitor, according to court records.
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