Inset, left to right: Justin Redd and Brittney Redd (Escambia County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The area in Florida where the couple lived with Justin Redd’s 9-year-old daughter (Google Maps).
Trapped in a nightmare, a young girl from Florida endured severe starvation, allegedly at the hands of her father and stepmother. Investigators reveal that the 9-year-old was confined to a barren room, its door secured with a metal chain, and subsisted mostly on meager servings of oatmeal twice daily. Her caretakers, meanwhile, allegedly duped medical professionals into believing she was plagued by intense behavioral and eating issues.
Facing these grave accusations are Justin Patrick Redd, aged 33, and Brittney Michelle Redd, 28. Authorities have charged the couple with aggravated child abuse, child neglect leading to significant harm, and failing to ensure school attendance, as presented in a probable cause affidavit from the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.
The case came to light following a hospital admission in late December 2024, when the girl, weighing just 45 pounds, was brought to Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital. Her condition, marked by malnutrition and blood in her urine, prompted a transfer to UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville, where her true plight unfolded.
Medical professionals at Shands described her condition in stark terms: she was “very malnourished and thin appearing,” with significant muscle wastage in her limbs, accompanied by dry and scaly skin—all symptoms pointing to severe malnutrition. Remarkably, during a two-week stay under proper care, the child met her caloric requirements and gained about 19 pounds, shining a light on the severe neglect she had previously suffered.
After arriving at the hospital, the girl told medical staff and investigators that she had been living with her father and stepmother since he gained custody in 2023 and that the couple routinely locked her inside her bedroom “with a metal chain outside her door.”
According to the affidavit, she said she was forced to wear only a pull-up diaper, withdrawn from school, and typically fed only oatmeal twice a day, with cold canned beans on occasion.
“She was not allowed to eat what everyone else ate,” police wrote in the affidavit.
The child also alleged she was denied regular access to a bathroom, forcing her to soil herself because her bedroom door remained locked. Afterward, she said Brittney Redd made her take cold showers before ordering her to “shake off like a dog as they didn’t have a towel for her.”
She further told investigators she slept on the floor without a blanket and was forbidden from having friends or celebrating holidays or birthdays. The defendants repeatedly told her she was a “danger to others” and a “thief.” She also believed the adults’ claim that cameras monitored her room around the clock, despite no cameras being found in the room.
Investigators wrote that the couple offered a starkly different explanation, claiming the girl suffered from medical and psychiatric problems, including self-harm, refusal to eat, bathroom issues, and an obsession with calories that caused her dramatic weight loss. They also denied locking her in her room.
But as detectives gathered medical, counseling and school records, they concluded those claims were repeatedly contradicted by objective evidence.
Hospital records showed the girl consistently gained weight whenever she was removed from the defendants’ custody. During one hospitalization in 2024, she gained nearly 9 pounds in four days. During another admission later that year, she gained more than 8 pounds in less than two weeks. After her December hospitalization, she gained about 19 pounds while under medical care.
Doctors also observed that she would “repeatedly ask staff for more food, not less, and would eat everything they gave her,” the affidavit states.
School records similarly undermined the couple’s account, investigators said.
Although Justin Redd claimed doctors recommended removing the girl from school, detectives found no medical documentation supporting that assertion. Instead, records showed Justin Redd withdrew her from school in May 2024 and did not enroll her again until after her hospitalization months later.
Teachers described the child as a typical third-grader who consistently ate all of her meals at school and exhibited none of the behavioral, bathroom or eating problems the couple described, according to investigators.
The affidavit also alleges Justin and Brittney Redd missed 14 scheduled medical appointments while the child’s condition continued to deteriorate.
Investigators ultimately concluded the evidence — including the girl’s statements, her rapid recoveries outside the home, medical documentation, and school records — supported charges against both defendants.
After being discharged from Shands in January, the girl was placed with another family member. Investigators reported that by March she had nearly doubled her weight, her blood work had returned to normal, and she was back in a traditional classroom, where teachers described her as sweet, shy and eating normally.
The Redds both pleaded not guilty to all charges. They remain in the Escambia County Jail ahead of their July 31 arraignments.
The post Dad, stepmom kept starving 9-year-old locked up ‘with a metal chain,’ made her ‘shake off like a dog’ after cold showers: Police first appeared on Law & Crime.