Relative who worked at child abuse nonprofit is latest arrest in Margate teen torture case

MARGATE, Fla. – Authorities arrested a former employee at a child abuse prevention group in reference to an investigation into an alleged area of torture in Margate the place a couple of members of the family are accused of brutalizing, caging and ravenous a 15-year-old woman for years.

Treaunshae Gibbons, described in open courtroom Thursday as a “blood relative” of the woman, was once charged with child forget with nice physically hurt and failure to record child abuse inside her family.

According to Gibbons arrest warrant, which was once closely redacted, she is the sufferer’s cousin and resided at the house from Nov. 1, 2015 to Nov. 19, 2019.

The warrant states that Gibbons “witnessed and/or otherwise knew of the abuse and neglect the child victim was experiencing and failed to make a reasonable effort” to give protection to the sufferer.

The 29-year-old now turns into the 5th member of the circle of relatives to be arrested and the fourth immediately tied to the abuse allegations.

Gibbons was once hired as a circle of relatives enhance counselor via Kids in Distress, a Wilton Manors-based nonprofit “dedicated to preventing child abuse, preserving families, and treating children who have been abused and neglected,” the group showed Thursday.

CEO Mark Dhooge advised Local 10 News in a remark that the case had not anything to do with Gibbons’ employment. He stated Kids in Distress fired her in November, “immediately after learning she was related to the family.”

Previous arrests

Already dealing with fees in the case are the 15-year-old’s aunt and uncle, Latricia Crawley and Benjamin Lockett, who had been arrested in overdue October, in addition to her sister, Shankyria Clayton, who was once arrested slightly greater than per week later.

Authorities then arrested a fourth member of the family, Horace Crawley, after accusing him of failing to re-register as a intercourse culprit.

The fees in opposition to the 74-year-old seem to be unrelated to the torture case, even though Margate police didn’t explicitly rule out Crawley as an extra suspect in a remark to Local 10 News following his arrest, with a lieutenant pronouncing investigators had been “going through the course of our investigation to determine how many more, if any, people will be charged with abuse and neglect of our victim.”

Horace Crawley remained in the back of bars as of Thursday.

Heinous allegations

The allegations prior to now made in opposition to the members of the family, in particular Crawley and Lockett — the woman’s felony guardians — concerned a couple of kinds of serious torture and hunger over the process a decade.

Police stated they had been made acutely aware of what was once occurring at the Northwest 79th Terrace house after the 15-year-old advised her on-line teacher that she wanted assist and requested for police to be despatched to her house.

Officers arrived at the home and found out that Lockett had punched the sufferer in the pinnacle as a result of he idea she had eaten sweet, inflicting her head to slam into the nook of a table, in keeping with an arrest record.

The sufferer suffered a lower to the left facet of her head, which was once bleeding and had visual swelling, the record said. Police stated she confirmed a couple of indicators of malnutrition and hunger.

Police stated the woman defined that Lockett, 43, and Crawley, 46, have had custody of her since 2014 and feature tortured her in quite a lot of tactics over time and in addition caged her in two other closets, forcing her to urinate and defecate in a bucket.

Alleged abuse indexed in the arrest record integrated:

• 2019: 11 years of age, (Lockett) kicked her in the chin, ensuing in a noticeable everlasting scar, noticed via your affiant.

• 2021: 13 years of age, (Crawley) oiled the knees of the sufferer and compelled the sufferer to kneel on rice for a number of hours at a time, for a number of days in a row, ensuing in everlasting disfigurement to the sufferer’s knees in the type of scar tissue, noticed via this affiant.

• 2021: 13 years of age, (Crawley) tied the sufferer to a set object and struck her feet with a hammer. According to the sufferer, this resulted in serious ache and bleeding.

• 2022: 14 years of age, (Crawley and Lockett) tied and sure the sufferer to other gadgets on a couple of events with a nylon rope, ensuing in everlasting disfigurement to the sufferer’s pores and skin on her shoulders, wrists and spaces of her abdomen in the type of scarring and hyperpigmentation, noticed via your affiant.

• 2022: 14 years of age, (Crawley) threw a pot of boiling water at the sufferer inflicting everlasting disfigurement in the type of scarring to the sufferer’s abdomen, noticed via your affiant.

According to the record, officials went to the sufferer’s house and located two closets that had locking mechanisms. Droplets of blood had been additionally noticed at the flooring inside of one of the most closets the place the sufferer stated she ran to after being punched via Lockett, then again the blood were wiped clean up by the point officials returned later in the day, police stated.

The sufferer advised officials that she would once in a while be tied up with zip ties within the closets and was once pressured to sleep there and stated Crawley “would often pour cold water on (her) while she slept, just to see her wake up,” the record said.

According to the record, the sufferer, who was once positioned in the custody of the Florida Department of Children and Families, stated that one type of punishment via Crawley integrated having her eyes taped close whilst her head was once dunked into water.

Clayton, 20, is accused of witnessing the abuse in opposition to her sister and failing to record it. Authorities additionally accused her of becoming a member of Crawley and Lockett in caging and ravenous {the teenager}.

Cases transfer thru courts

Crawley and Lockett are dealing with a couple of counts every of child abuse inflicting nice physically hurt, in addition to one rely every of child forget inflicting nice physically hurt. Both had been arraigned in Broward County courtroom on Tuesday.

Clayton was once charged with annoyed child abuse, child forget inflicting nice physically hurt and failing to record abuse. Her subsequent look in courtroom is scheduled for Jan. 2.

On Thursday, a Broward pass judgement on ordered Gibbons haven’t any touch with the co-defendants or youngsters, except her personal, set her bond at $80,000 and required she put on a GPS track if she will get out of prison.