From NY Post: Four Florida adults allegedly held nine children captive inside their home, locked them in makeshift cages, forced their adopted youngsters to do chores and sprayed them with vinegar as a twisted punishment.
Officials uncovered the brutal treatment of the children inside a mobile home in Fort White, Florida on July 3, according to the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office.
Five of the children are biological to the family, while four of them were adopted in a private process in Arizona. They range in age from 7 to 16.
Brain Matthew Griffeth, 47, Jill Elizabeth Griffeth, 41, Dallin Russel Griffeth, 21, and Liberty Ann Griffeth, 19, were arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse on July 22.
Police were initially alerted to the suspected horrors within the home when a church official reported that one of the children possessed a functioning electric stun gun at a church camp in Branford, Florida.
Brian Griffeth said the stun gun was a toy, but officials later confirmed its authenticity.
A subsequent wellness check alarmed officials when the four adopted children were engaged in chores while the five biological children were either playing or watching TV, as reported by the police.
The 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom residence in the dense woods of Columbia County, approximately 35 miles northwest of Gainesville, became a nightmare home for the adopted children. They were trapped beneath a bunk bed with plywood and subjected to other cruel punishments, like being sprayed with vinegar in their faces, physical abuse with a cane, being given non-prescribed medication, and having a piece of plywood pressed on top of them, causing pain and splinters, police said.
The children were instructed to fabricate stories about the living conditions within the home.
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