Arizona Couple Arrested After Their Kids Found Locked Inside With No Water Or Food

The horrific stories about child abuse should not be coming out one after another—almost every day, it seems, we hear of another case. Some cases are beyond extreme, and the inhumane treatment of innocent and defenseless children resemble the type of scenarios found in a Hollywood horror movie—but there are real kids suffering the abuse.

The latest case of child abuse and negligence concerns a couple from Arizona.

Benito and Carol Gutierrez were apprehended by the authorities after their four children, all of whom were adopted, were found locked from the outside in their Tucson house without direct access to food and water. The children were aged between six and 12 years old; the truth about the horrible treatment came out after one of the kids was finally able to escape through a window and get help.

After the police were notified, officers immediately went to the house on Saturday, and they were shocked to discover that all four children were locked in from the outside in different rooms. Reportedly, they had no access to food and water or direct sunlight, and they also had no way of using a toilet for at least half a day. One of the bedrooms had a bucket inside, and the children were forced to use it instead of a proper toilet.

It was stated in a media report that all children were often locked in from the outside and left without water or food supplies, and they were also unable to use the bathroom for up to 12 hours per day.
69-years-old Benito Gutierrez and 64-year-old Carol Gutierrez were arrested on three different child abuse counts and will be sentenced if proven guilty. Reports say that the investigation for the case began on the 17th of February, when one of the kids managed to escape through his bedroom window. The child walked in the nearest shop and asked to make a phone call, but upon seeing the child’s condition, the clerk did not hesitate to call 911.

Naturally, the children were quickly removed from the Gutierrez home.

This case is strikingly similar to the “house of horrors” story, which should still give you the chills. For those of you who do not remember what happened exactly, the case was about the Turpins, a Texas family—in which the parents were accused of purposely torturing, abusing, and starving their 13 children.

David Allen Turpin, 57, and his wife Louise Anna Turpin, 49, were arrested because of the horrible condition in which their kids were kept.

Twelve of the kids were found chained to their beds in the house on a Sunday morning. All of them were exhausted, starved, and dirty. The Turpins’ children were aged between 2 and 29 years of age.

The “house of horrors” in Perris, LA, was busted after one of the kids, a 17-year-old girl, was able to escape through a window. The teenager contacted the Sheriff’s Department of Riverside County via a phone she got from the house. Police officers rushed to her location and immediately noticed that she looked much younger than her actual age.

The scared girl told the officers that her twelve brothers and sisters were still held captive inside the house, and later the police found five children and seven adults above the age of 18 tied to their beds via padlocks. The rooms smelled bad and the conditions were awful, but the parents could not give a rational explanation as to why their children were chained up. Most of the victims were in need of medical attention. After the arrest of the parents, they ended up facing charges of child abuse and endangerment, and bail was set at nine millions dollars for each of them.