A Gwinnett County magistrate on Wednesday set a preliminary hearing date for a man accused of malicious child cruelty involving charges of imprisoning his autistic stepdaughter in a closet.
William Anthony Brown, 40, will have the opportunity to hear the evidence against him when witnesses are called to testify about his case at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 5 in magistrate court. Brown and his wife are accused of abusing and starving the wife’s 15-year-old daughter. His wife told authorities that she had tried to get help for her daughter but said she had to keep her separated from her siblings because of her violent episodes.
Last week, a magistrate denied bond to the girl’s mother, Jade Marie Jacobs, who was arrested earlier this month.
Brown, a long-distance trucker, spoke to the police by telephone earlier this month but refused to surrender, said Cpl. Ed Ritter of Gwinnett police. It was unclear Wednesday whether he turned himself in or was picked up on the outstanding child cruelty warrant.
Jacobs, 35, was arrested after she had dropped off the girl, who weighed 60 pounds, at a hospital. A nurse called the police to report the suspected abuse.
Earlier, Jacobs also had called police before bringing the girl to the hospital. She told the 911 operator that she had been trying to place her daughter in a program suitable for her autism and mental health issues but had been unable to enroll her in one. Meanwhile, the mother said, the girl was becoming more aggressive toward her siblings.
Jacobs told the operator that her daughter would cut herself and engaged in other self-destructive practices.
“Right now I don’t know how much more I can deal with that,” Jacobs said on the recording.
The 15-year-old and her three younger sisters, who police say showed no sign of abuse, are in the custody of the state Department of Family and Children Services.
Brian Dorminy of the Gwinnett County Police Department testified at the mother’s preliminary hearing that the teenager was kept in a small room about the size of an office cubicle. He said there was a “2-foot-by-2-foot exercise mat” on the floor and the only light in the room was florescent. He said urine and feces stained her shirts and pants.
“She had multiple bruises all over her body,” Dorminy said. “Some of the bruises resembled bedsores that … possibly could be an indication she had been restrained or confined to a small area.”
Dorminy also said the girl said her mother had given her a black eye.
The other girls in the house told police their oldest sister was isolated in a closet in the basement bedroom of her 13-year-old sister because “the girl was violent against them.”
Jacobs and the 15-year-old have a history in the courts. She was charged with assaulting the girl in 2000 as a baby when she put her in extremely hot bath water.
The case is the newest in a list from Gwinnett that has shocked metro Atlanta over the last year. Last fall came accusations that Eman and Tiffany Moss, also from the Lawrenceville area, starved 10-year-old Emani Moss and put her burned body in a Dumpster. This summer, Recardo and Therian Wimbush, of Buford, have been accused of keeping their 13-year-old son imprisoned in a basement to punish him for misbehavior. They are being held without bond in the Gwinnett County jail.
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