May 15 (UPI) -- Authorities in western New Jersey arrested and charged a mother and stepfather after their 18-year-old daughter whom they had chained up and locked in a dog create for years escaped their home last week.
Circumstances of her escape were not made public, but authorities said the unidentified girl had fled her home Thursday and received assistance from a neighbor.
The girl told authorities that she had been physically, mentally and sexually abused by her parents since about 2018, when her mother removed her from school.
The girl's parents, Brenda Spencer, 38, and Branndon Mosley, 41, were arrested and charged Sunday with a slew of offenses, including kidnapping, endangering the welfare of a child, criminal restraint and assault with a deadly weapon. Mosley, the stepfather, faces additional charges of sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child by sexual assault.
"This is the most abhorrent, heinous crime anyone could commit," Camden County Prosecutor Grace MacAulay said during a press conference Wednesday.
