A teenage girl under psychiatric care was confined to her upstairs bedroom for months because her stepmother believed she was “bad” and required her “to be good” for two straight days before lifting the punishment. As seen here.
A teenage girl was confined to her upstairs bedroom for months because her stepmother believed she was “bad” and required her “to be good” for two straight days before lifting the punishment, a sibling told police.Of Course (as noted above), the child was under the care of a psychiatrist for over a year and a half. The psychiatrist has issued a statement saying in part:
The child’s Jan. 12 account of how Clint and Lynn Engstrom treated the 13-year-old girl helped convince a judge to issue a search warrant for the Engstrom’s home later that day, according to court records. The couple was charged Jan. 16 with one count each of causing mental harm to a child, a felony punishable by up to 12½ years in prison.
Lynn Engstrom, the girl’s stepmother, acknowledged to investigators that the girl had been “grounded” in her room for months. The girl’s plight came to light after her parents took her to an Appleton hospital because she was hearing voices and pulling out her hair.
Search warrant records say an anonymous caller contacted Winnebago County child protective services about the girl’s situation and a social services worker contacted police Jan. 12, leading to the interview with the sibling and the search warrant request.
The caller reported the girl “had anger episodes that her parents could not deal with any longer so they started to keep in her room all day and night,” court records said.
The caller told police the parents felt they weren’t doing anything wrong and claimed they were following a doctor’s orders.
Lynn Engstrom’s attorney, Joseph Hildebrand, said Friday the parents took the girl to the Appleton hospital Jan. 5 on the advice of a psychiatrist she had been seeing for a year and a half. The psychiatrist recommended the family get a second opinion about her care, he said. Once at the hospital, the girl was admitted.
“It is false that she was locked into a room,” Hildebrand said. “She is a troubled child who needs help.”
Hildebrand said the girl saw a special education teacher through the public schools in Oshkosh two or three times a week “through most of December.” He called the charges against the parents unfair, saying the case is “making a mountain out of a molehill.”
John Sprangers, personnel director for the Oshkosh Area School District, has said the girl re-enrolled in the school system on Dec. 11. Police have said the girl attended a church school in Oshkosh until last June.
A hearing before Winnebago County Court Commissioner Daniel Bissett is scheduled Tuesday for prosecutors to justify the charges. Dist. Atty. Christian Gossett said the girl would testify.
The parents remain in jail, unable to post $25,000 cash bails.
According to court records, the girl’s younger stepbrother — one of three other children in the Engstrom home — told police the teenager had been kept in her room about 19 hours a day for months for lying and other behavior, such as spitting in his mother’s food.
He said his mom said the teen “is bad and has to go two days straight of being good before she can come out of her room or have other privileges like TV,” court records said.
The sibling said he only got to see the girl when she went to the bathroom, occasionally joined them at the dinner table or was taken to the doctor, court records said.
He told a police detective that he wasn’t allowed to go in the girl’s spartan, “boring” room to play with her.
The boy told police the girl would be spanked with a wooden spoon kept in the kitchen if she left the room for anything other than going to the bathroom, court records said.
The boy also said his stepsister had gone to Grace Lutheran School until the sixth grade but didn’t return this fall because she “made his mom sad by telling teachers and other people at school that she wasn’t her real mom and that she was a bad mom,” court records said.
In another development Friday, Hildebrand said the Engstroms received an eviction notice. Their landlord is seeking about $4,700 in back rent, court records said.
“They cannot afford to pay it, and they are not earning any money,” Hildebrand said.
"Our staff has never recommended or condoned the confining of a child in a locked room and the depriving of necessary nourishment, clothing, heat, bathroom facilities, education or social interaction for a child. Such treatment of a child is absolutely reprehensible."Our question is,
How did it happen that it took this long to find out what was going on?
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