Posted on 03/14/2002 8:57:59 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
Couple arrested after children forced to dig ditches
03/14/2002
TYLER, Texas - Arrests of an East Texas couple followed accusations that they forced their four young children to dig ditches in subfreezing weather as punishment for sneaking food between meals.
Luis Guevera Sanchez, 31, and Melissa Dale Raynor, 32, were arrested last week in connection with felony child endangerment, Smith County Jail records show. Both were released this week after posting bond.
Child endangerment charges against the Lindale couple were forwarded Wednesday to the Smith County District Attorney.
The youngsters, ages 6, 10, 11 and 12, have been returned to the custody of their parents, but Child Protective Services is continuing to investigate, according to the Tyler Morning Telegraph's Thursday editions.
The children were punished for dipping their fingers into jar of peanut butter and sneaking cookies between meals, investigators said.
A CPS report filed on the case indicated the children had been subjected to "bizarre punishment," authorities said Wednesday.
Lindale officials acting on a welfare concern March 2 found the youngsters alone at night, monitored only by an in-home surveillance system.
"The children have been exposed to extreme weather, they are malnourished, meals have been withheld," Precinct 5 Constable Dennis Taylor told the newspaper. "The parents used cameras to make sure the kids weren't disobeying."
Authorities found the children sitting motionless on the floor at various points in the house after their parents went to the movies.
The children told authorities Sanchez imposed a variety of punishments, including digging in a wooded creek bottom about 200 yards from the house.
My three year old goes on hunger strikes. Won't eat dinner, or breakfast the following morning but boy will he eat lunch after skipping two meals.
Hmmm... I must be endangering my child by not FORCING him to eat. Next time I'll have to crank up the ol' IV machine lest Child Protective Services think I'm not feeding my child!
.../sarcasm
Ditchdiggers here get $100.00 an hour.
Uh huh.
We did have a tractor and snowplow, but if we got to fighting and there was a lot of snow, out we went. By the time we got to the top of the hill and back we were too pooped to fight.
All of the guys on the site told me I should get at least $2.00 per hour...So I got up the nerve and went into the office one afternoon and asked for my first raise ever..." I want $2.00 per hour!" I squeeled.
My stepfather reached out with his steel like hands and grabbed my limp little wrists and pulled my arms towards him. He forced my palms skyward and they were blistered, scratched and scabbed...As he looked through his bi-foculs over his red cragy nose...he examined them. Without moving his head, he raised his focus over the frames of his glasses, and with a piercing gaze... " I will give you $1.25"...
As I walked out of the office I felt great...I felt like I was growing up. I was the talk of the site the next day. My mother caught wind of this incident and the next check I received had the $2.00 per hour rate...
I used to love to write, but my right brain beat the left brain to a pulp in a knock down drag out that lasted 25 years...now I gaze at stock charts all day and confine my ramblings to these threads...
Thanks for the compliment, perhaps It will spur a rematch...
Never point a firearm at anything you are not willing to destroy. But if you are willing to destroy the target, go right ahead...
By the way, there's quite a few chores to be done round my place ... you don't suppose these people would rent the greedy little buggers out. I couldn't find it in my heart to be so tough on'em. Give all the Peanut Butter they want ... at mealtimes that is.
Whoa....I am with you...I had no intention to minimize the apparent abuse of children depicted in the thread. My heart is extended as well.
The story invoked a memory of mine; of an event that was seminal in my growing up...perhaps this wasn't the proper format, but the mind opened up and my hands started typing. My memory was a fond one...and if these children have indeed been abused...I apologize for my insensativity...
Regards Bunk
Now, his 5 year old sister is a little hefty. She already weighs 55 lbs. Her identical twin sister weighs 45 lbs.
I give them all the same things, and they all eat differently.
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