Posted on 08/04/2011 7:16:35 AM PDT by beaversmom
A Fayette County man claims he is the father of a 10-year-old Arizona girl who authorities said suffocated in a footlocker where she was put as punishment for eating a Popsicle without permission.
Kenneth Griest of Grindstone said the victim, Ame Lynn Deal, was his biological daughter, though his name does not appear on the child's birth certificate.
Ame was systematically starved and beaten, according to police in Phoenix. She suffocated July 12 after she was stuffed into the footlocker on a 103-degree day, police said.
Charged with first-degree murder are the child's cousin, Samantha Allen, and her husband, John Allen, both 23. They were jailed on $1 million bail. The child's grandmother, Judith Deal, 72, and her aunt and legal guardian, Cynthia Stolzman, 44, were charged with kidnapping and child abuse.
The four frequently locked the child in the airtight 14- by 31-inch footlocker, forced her to eat dog feces and beat her with a wooden paddle the family called a "butt buster," police allege.
They forced Ame to do strenuous exercises in hot weather, sleep in a shower stall and swallow hot sauce when she was caught stealing food because she was chronically hungry, police said.
The child was at least 16 pounds underweight, police said, noting that she weighed only 59 pounds when she died.
Griest, 47, would like to have Ame's remains shipped to Pennsylvania, so his family could hold a service and bury her in a family plot in Uniontown.
"I never got to say goodbye," he said.
Griest had not seen the child since she was 4 when her mother, Shirley Lecomte Deal, formerly of Connellsville, left with her husband, David...
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
Very sad story... especially sad since the Father tried for years to find his little girl. I hope the authorities allow her body to be shipped to him so he can give her a proper burial and say good bye. I can’t even comment on the “family” members who did this to her... words fail me.
Here are the beasts that abused and killed her. They probably won't get what they deserve in this life.
Poor little thing in the clutches of devils
This poor little girl woke up in the arms of Jesus, never to be hungry or hot again.
My heart hurts so much, I can’t even begin to imagine the pain and mental anguish this poor child went through. She is in the bosom of our Lord now, a far better place. Every time I think humans can not be any more depraved...
That’s exactly what I was just thinking. Someone out there would have loved to have been her parent and would have treated her like she deserved to be treated.
0bummer voters.
And the faces of EVIL.
I swear you can see the cruelty in their faces. They just have the look of bad. No... they won’t get what they deserve in this life. The only comfort is knowing that the little one is with God and loved.
I’d like to be the first to volunteer to dispose of these worthless pieces of humanity.
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