From left to right: Manuel Ortiz and Licha Ortiz (West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation).
A harrowing discovery was made in West Virginia when an 11-year-old girl, bound with zip-ties, was discovered in a garage bathroom of her home. This bathroom had been sealed with spray foam insulation, and a camera had been positioned to monitor the door. This alarming situation led to the arrest of the child’s parents, law enforcement officials have confirmed.
In a heartbreaking message scrawled on a bathroom wall, the child expressed her feelings of neglect: “They love my brother but not me,” she wrote, as cited in a criminal complaint accessed by local CBS station WDTV. “No one on my side,” the note continued, starkly stating, “Just me.”
The parents, Manuel Ortiz Jr., 69, and Licha Ortiz, 54, face serious charges including child abuse that could lead to bodily harm or even death, along with conspiracy, as detailed in court documents reviewed by Law&Crime.
Authorities were alerted by a witness who discovered the young girl restrained within the garage of the family’s residence in Beverly, West Virginia. Allegedly, she was confined to a bathroom within the garage, its door sealed with spray foam. The girl reportedly communicated through a small gap in the door to both her rescuer and her parents, the criminal complaint reveals.
The witness used tools to remove the foam and opened the door to find the victim with her hands zip-tied behind her back and zip ties around her ankles, police say. It’s unclear how long the child had been inside the bathroom.
“It makes you uncomfortable,” Manuel Ortiz allegedly told the witness’s boyfriend when he asked about what was going on, WDTV reports.
Police say the victim had ligature marks on her wrists and ankles when examined by officers. Her feet also appeared swollen and red.
Police executed a search warrant at the Ortiz residence and found large amounts of trash and belongings piled up in the home. Officers also found a camera on an end table facing the bathroom door in the garage, which Licha Ortiz claimed was broken, according to The Inter-Mountain newspaper. Officers seized the camera as evidence.
Manuel Ortiz and Licha Ortiz were both being held this week on cash-only bonds set at $150,000 each.
The post Parents used spray foam to seal their 11-year-old inside garage bathroom, girl wrote ‘they love my brother but not me’ all over walls: Cops first appeared on Law & Crime.