Parents are arrested for keeping their adopted son locked in a garage for five years

Locked inside a garage, in a tiny room measuring just 2.4 by 2.4 meters, without the possibility of turning on the light from inside, with the only company of a bed, a bucket to relieve himself and a surveillance camera that recorded everything that happened inside. This is how a 14-year-old boy, victim of terrible child abuse, lived for five years.

Parents are arrested for keeping their adopted son locked in a garage for five years

His dramatic situation has been discovered by the police of Jupiter, a town located in Palm Beach County, Florida, USA, after his adoptive mother reported him missing without knowing that this would lead to an investigation that would lead the authorities to discover the way in which both she and her partner treated the child.

In the police investigation, officers went to the home of Tracy and Timothy Ferriter, the adoptive parents, both 46 years old. It was there that they noticed that, right in the garage, there was a small structure that she was quick to define as a ‘small office’. However, what it really was was the tiny space in which they forced the child to live, who was only allowed to leave to go to school.

There, in addition to the bed, the bucket to relieve himself, and some books and personal belongings, a camera recorded everything on video, which would eventually serve as evidence for the police, who after obtaining a warrant checked how there were images of the teenager locked inside that structure, which had the light switch only on the outside, where there was also a lock.

The young man recounted his hell to the authorities: he preferred to be sent to prison than to the ‘cage’ of his adoptive parents.

After his disappearance, it was when the minor reappeared at the school that the authorities found him and were able to question him, discovering that, in fact, Tracy and Timothy had been forcing him to live locked up there for years, where he spent up to 18 hours, as reported by WPTV citing police sources.

The teenager told everything to the agents, who asked him the reasons why he had escaped: “Because I feel that nobody loves me”, was his harsh answer, while he even begged them to arrest him. He preferred prison to the cage in which his adoptive parents kept him locked up. He verbalized: “I would rather be in prison than back home,” he said, as the police report states.

The young man had been ‘forcibly confined’ since 2017

Thus, the police delved into the investigation determining that the teen had been forcibly confined in that structure inside the garage since 2017. In total, five years suffering the abuse.

Now, both Tracy and Timothy Ferriter are charged with aggravated child abuse, while losing custody of the other three children they have who were living in the home.

After they were arrested, the defense tried to argue that the child, who had been adopted, suffered from reactive attachment disorder. Nevertheless, they were sent to prison, albeit on $50,000 bail. Both, however, pleaded not guilty.