The trial of a mother and stepfather accused of starving an autistic teenager and keeping her in a closet is expected to begin Monday, the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s office said.
Jade Marie Anne Jacobs and William Anthony Brown were arrested in August 2014 and charged with child cruelty and false imprisonment after Jacobs dropped the girl at a hospital. The Lawrenceville girl, then 15, weighed only 60 pounds, authorities have said.
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In a 2014 preliminary hearing, police said she was kept in the closet, the size of an office cubicle, with only a 2-by-2-foot exercise mat. She had cuts and bruises all over her body and a black eye. She wore clothes stained with urine and feces, a police officer testified.
The cuts and bruises were consistent with beating, police said.
Jacobs said she left the girl at the hospital because she "just could not do it anymore." She claimed the teenager had been increasingly aggressive towards her and the other children in the house. Jacobs also said her daughter had begun exhibiting self-destructive behaviors, including cutting herself.
In 2014, Jacobs' lawyer said Jacobs was "at her wits' end" after trying to get assistance for her daughter.
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