It began when a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper found the 12-year-old boy walking alone along Highway T just across the St. Charles County line on May 2. Bruises covered his face, legs and arms. When the trooper raised the child’s shirt, bruises dotted much of his torso, all in various stages of healing, according to court documents. The boy told the trooper he had just escaped from his house along Highway OO. He had packed a bag. And escaped only because his parents, Christopher Crets, 40, and Nicole Crets, 33, forgot to handcuff him to his bed that day,...