San Diego County Hall of Justice (Google Maps).
A 7-year-old girl fled a rural California home after allegedly enduring starvation, beatings, burns and other horrific abuse, including being forced to drink contaminated toilet water. Bruised and injured, she ran to a neighbor and pleaded to live there. Her uncle and his girlfriend have now been sentenced to prison.
Devin Hughes, 39, and Kayla Reynolds, 32, were sentenced Friday to 25 years for abusing Hughes’ 7-year-old niece at their mobile home in Boulevard, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office said in a press release.
The couple pleaded guilty in March to more than 10 felony charges, including torture, child abuse, corporal injury, mayhem and assault likely to cause great bodily injury.
Prosecutors said the girl escaped in July 2025 after she “found the courage and opportunity to run to a neighbor’s home to ask for help.” She was covered in bruises, scars and burn marks and had a black eye.
“[The girl] escaped her abusers and ran to a neighbor’s home where she asked if she could live with him because she was being beaten and abused,” the DA’s office said. “The neighbors immediately notified authorities.”
When sheriff’s deputies arrived, they found the child malnourished and suffering from obvious injuries. She told investigators that Hughes had bound her hands behind her back with a zip tie and then tripped her, causing the black eye.
The girl also reported that Hughes and Reynolds cut her hair with a pocketknife and burned her with vape pens. Prosecutors said she was deprived of food and forced to drink dirty toilet water.
“In addition, she was forced to hold her urine to the point of wetting herself and then would be forced to clean it up using her tongue,” the DA’s office said. “She would be forced to sleep on the floor and would often be chained to a treadmill using a cable lock.”
Investigators found items that allegedly supported the girl’s account, including zip ties, cable locks and vape pens. Three other children were also living in the home, according to the DA’s office.
The victim was treated at Rady Children’s Hospital, where she gained 5 pounds during her stay. She was later placed with a family member and is “now thriving in her new environment,” prosecutors said.
“The level of abuse inflicted on this 7-year-old child is abhorrent and heartbreaking,” San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan said Friday in a statement, describing the way Hughes and Reynolds treated the child as “sickening.”
Stephan added, “Our prosecution team, the dedicated deputies and detectives at the Sheriff’s Office, along with the medical staff at Rady Children’s Hospital who nursed the victim back to health all stepped in to restore her health and safety. She finally has a chance to blossom without the oppressive abuse of her wicked family members.”
The post Uncle and girlfriend kept 7-year-old niece chained to a treadmill, had the girl ‘using her tongue’ to clean and forced her to drink dirty toilet water — now they head to prison first appeared on Law & Crime.
