By KPLC Digital Team

Jeff Davis Parish, LA (KPLC) - The parents of a child who died in October 2022 have been arrested on murder charges in connection with his death.

“I mean, it’s a horrendous crime that went on for years, and I think we all failed that kid,” Jeff Davis Sheriff Ivy Woods said.

Chief Deputy Chris Ivey, with the Jeff Davis Sheriff’s Office, said in a news release that an autopsy was performed on Oct. 24, 2022, after 12-year-old Brogan Duhon died at a children’s hospital in Baton Rouge. The report, turned over to the Jeff Davis coroner on Jan. 10, 2023, indicated the cause of death as complications from malnutrition, and the manner of death deemed a homicide, Ivey said.

Both parents, Jennifer Ann Duhon, 40, and Adam Duhon, 40, were arrested Feb. 16, 2023, on charges of second-degree murder.

Ankeny police say a couple locked their adopted child in their room, refused to give them food, and left them out in the cold.

Matthew and Sarah Stephens are both charged with child endangerment and neglect.

According to a criminal complaint, the allegations span four years.

Investigators said the couple regularly forced the now-13-year-old to go without dinner and would make them stand outside for hours. Documents state they would watch the child through a hidden camera, and put alarms on the door to keep them from leaving. The two are also accused of withholding proper hygiene and clean clothes, forcing the child to ask for showers at school.

Documents show Sarah Stephens abandoned the teen at a hospital in November.

by: Dan Hendrickson

ANKENY, IOWA — An Ankeny couple are charged with Child Endangerment and Neglect of a Dependent Person for allegedly abusing their 13-year-old adopted child at their home, then abandoning them at a Des Moines hospital. Matthew Stephens, 47, and Sarah Stephens, 46, were arrested on Wednesday. They are both now free on bond.

According to court documents, the couple ‘knowingly and willingly’ abused their adopted 13-year-old-child – while other adopted siblings in the home weren’t similarly treated.

Among the accusations in the report:

• the Stephens deprived the victim of food, clothing and shelter
• punished child by not allowing them to eat, causing significant weight loss
• child made to stand outside for hours as punishment (sometimes in the cold)
• child was watched through a hidden camera in their room
• an alarm was placed on the child’s room
• the child wasn’t allowed to change clothes or maintain hygiene

The four Croatian couples are accused of trying to traffic four infants from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Eight Croatians facing child trafficking charges in Zambia were granted bail on Tuesday following their rearrest last week while trying to leave the Southern African nation.

The charges allege that on December 7 last year, the four couples acted together with a Zambian immigration official to try to traffic four children from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The group said they legally adopted the children aged between one and three years old but Zambian authorities have accused them of trafficking the minors.

The prosecution had opposed the bail application, arguing that the eight were flight risks.

PTI 

New Delhi, Feb 13 (PTI) Apex child rights body NCPCR has hit out at central adoption agency CARA over its "casual approach" towards the plight of three Indian children abandoned in Malta after being adopted.

In a letter to the Central Adoption Resources Authority (CARA) director, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) said it was bound to take strict action keeping in mind the welfare of the children.

"The commission has requested your good offices to furnish the details of the children who have been abandoned by adoptive parents in Malta. The commission is in receipt of a reply from your end, wherein it has been mentioned that the government department of Malta has been approached to provide the information about the children if they had been adopted from India," it said.

"It is stated that in some news reports, a government official of Malta has himself revealed that the children who have been abandoned in Malta were adopted from India," the NCPCR said.

The commission said it has found that CARA has adopted a "casual approach in the matter.

The complainant Anjali Pawar is the director of a Pune-based voluntary child rights organisation ‘Sakhee’. She had reportedly contacted the NCPCR through the online complaints system on January 31 regarding the Indian children who were adopted in Malta

Ajeyo Basu

New Delhi: The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has asked the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) to furnish all details regarding three Indian children who were adopted in Malta but have been allegedly abandoned by their adoptive parents.

In a communication on Friday, the NCPCR asked the CARA to come up with the details of the case within 24 hours.

“The Commission is in receipt of a complaint through its E-Baal Nidan portal wherein it has been stated that the three siblings who were recently adopted to Malta were abandoned by their Maltese adoptive parents. lt has also been mentioned in the complaint that these children were adopted from lndia. Further, the complainant has mentioned the news report link which states about the incident,” NCPCR chief Priyank Kanoongo said in the letter addressed to CARA.

Ambika Pandit 

NEW DELHI: Taking cognisance of a complaint, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights on Friday wrote to the Central Adoption Resource Authority to furnish all details within 24 hours regarding a worrying case where according to reports three Indian children who were adopted in Malta have been abandoned by their adoptive parents.

In the letter addressed to CARA on Friday, NCPCR chief Priyank Kanoongo has said, “the Commission is in receipt of a complaint through its E-Baal Nidan portal wherein it has been stated that the three siblings who were recently adopted to Malta were abandoned by their Maltese adoptive parents. lt has also been mentioned in the complaint that these children were adopted from lndia. Further, the complainant has mentioned the news report link which states about the incident”.

Kanoongo goes on to assert that, the Commission, therefore, requires CARA to furnish all the details of the children including their adoption papers, follow up reports, and all the relevant documents relating to the adoption to the Commission within 24 hours from the receipt of this letter. The NCPCR has shared with CARA the details shared by the complainant and the news report from the Times of Malta dated January 2.

It is learnt that the complainant Anjali Pawar, who is director of a Pune-based voluntary child rights organisation “Sakhee” had reached out to NCPCR through the online complaints system on January 31 highlighting the case.

Bond doubled for Salisbury couple accused of attempted murder and child abuse

By David Whisenant

SALISBURY, N.C. (WBTV) - Bond for a husband and wife accused of child abuse and the attempted murder of their 11-year-old son was doubled during a court hearing on Thursday morning.

Also on Thursday, the release of police search warrant says officers recovered videos and photos of “ongoing abuse” of the boy at the hands of the Karrikers.

District Judge James Randolph raised the bond for Reed and Georgianna Karriker, both 42, from $300,000 to $600,000 on charges of attempted murder and felony child abuse inflicting serious injury.

Olivia Atkocaitis, now 19, alleges in the lawsuit that her parents prevented her from attending public school and imprisoned her in a room in their basement.

By Emma Sánchez

A woman born in China and adopted by parents in the New Hampshire town of New Boston is now suing them alleging years of abuse, dangerous living conditions and racist treatment. 

Olivia Atkocaitis, now 19, alleges in the lawsuit filed Monday that her parents, Denise and Thomas Atkocaitis, prevented her from attending public school and imprisoned her in a room in their basement. It also alleges they forced her to perform intense manual labor, beat her and shouted racial slurs at her, among other abuses, for nearly 14 years.

Atkocaitis said in the suit she attempted to escape multiple times throughout her childhood but was reprimanded and returned to her home’s dangerous conditions by local police each time, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit says Atkocaitis escaped for the last time in 2018 by digging through the walls of a “basement prison” and running away to nearby woods. 

New Hampshire Public Radio | By Sarah Gibson

A 19-year-old woman is suing New Hampshire’s child protective services agency, local law enforcement and other institutions for allegedly failing to rescue her from years of neglect, abuse and slavery by her adoptive parents.

The 70-page lawsuit filed in Merrimack Superior Court on Monday alleges Olivia Atkocaitis's adoptive parents subjected her to years of abuse, including locking her in a basement with her own human waste, handcuffing her, beating her and demanding that she give them massages. The lawsuit also alleges that Olivia, who was born in China, was subject to "demeaning racial epithets."

Olivia escaped in 2018, at age 15, and was put in state custody.

“Olivia is only able to bring this civil action because she dug her way through the walls of a basement prison, and then ran for her life, to freedom, after suffering years of imprisonment and forced servitude within a home the defendants placed her in, and to which the defendants returned her, repeatedly,” the lawsuit reads.