Girl was forced to eat cat food, drink laundry detergent while locked in room, reports say

An indictment details troubling conditions a girl was forced to endure, including being forced to eat cat food and drink laundry detergent, according to reports.

Rimmon Lewis, 32, and Angela Strothers, 33, of Gwinnett County, Ga., were indicted on cruelty to children charges after an investigation, according to WSB-TV.

Lewis, the 13-year-old girl’s stepfather, and Strother’s the girl’s mother, were indicted by a grand jury in November, according to WXIA 11 Alive.

The girl regularly was locked in a laundry room, fed cat food and left with scraps from her family’s dinner plates after they finished a hot meal, according to WSB-TV.

She was locked inside so long, she urinated herself and was forced to sleep and go to school in her clothes, according to 11 Alive.

Once, she was forced to swallow laundry detergent, 11 Alive reported.

She was punched, kicked, forced to take baths in freezing cold and scalding hot water, according to WFTV. There were scars and bruises on her body from where she was beat with a table leg and belt.

The girl also was forced to complete “standards,” including standing barefoot on cans of food while she wrote phrases 1,000 times in a row. She wouldn’t be allowed to eat until she was done.

Lewis would force his thumbs in her mouth so hard it caused her to bleed and scar because she stuttered around him, WFTV reported.

The abuse may have been going on for years, investigators reportedly learned, according to AJC.com.

“The severity of what happened to this child over a number of years is just astounding,” Assistant District Attorney Tracie Carson told 11 Alive.

In March, counselors at the girl’s school noticed her bruises and called police, according to the AJC.

Lewis was charged with 15 counts of first-degree cruelty to children, four counts of aggravated battery and one count of aggravated stalking.

Strothers was indicted on court counts of cruelty to children and one count of aggravated stalking, according to the AJC.

Prosecutors told WSB-TV that Strothers didn’t necessarily directly cause the abuse but she knew the girl was being starved and beaten.

The stalking charges stemmed from an incident where, through his wife, Lewis had clothes delivered to the girl, along with a promise that he would stop abusing her, according to WFTV.

Lewis has previously pleaded guilty to several charges, including first-degree cruelty to children and third-degree cruelty to children in Cobb County in 2014, the AJC reported. The charges concerned alleged abuse to the same child, Channel 2 reported.

He was sentenced to 12 months in prison and 10 years probation, but was released on time served after he entered his plea, the AJC reported, citing court records. Lewis is currently in prison, serving time for a violation of his probation after an April arrest.

Strothers also was arrested in April but was released on bond, the AJC reported.

The girl and her siblings are in the custody of the Georgia Department of Family and Child Services, according to the AJC.

This story was originally published December 6, 2017 at 3:02 PM with the headline "Girl was forced to eat cat food, drink laundry detergent while locked in room, reports say."