Last week, a former mixed martial arts competitor admitted to second-degree murder in the tragic case of his 5-year-old daughter. The young girl was discovered lifeless, crammed into a playpen so tiny that she was forced into a fetal position.
According to the Daily Voice, Charlotte Buskey spent her final days confined to a bedroom, isolated without food, water, or any contact with the outside world.
Her younger brother, aged three, was similarly isolated, kept within a cage in the dining area of what authorities from the Schenectady County District Attorney’s Office referred to as a “house of horrors.”
Robert Buskey Jr, 35, was charged with neglecting his children over several months.
“Charlotte was essentially imprisoned in her bedroom, leading to her death from dehydration and starvation,” stated Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney. “Their universe was reduced to the confines of Mr. Buskey’s appalling home.”
When authorities responded to a call about an “unresponsive child” in April 2024, they discovered the house “stocked with food,” with unopened boxes piled just outside the locked door of Charlotte’s room.
Charlotte’s body was so dehydrated that he eyes were sunk into her skull, and an autopsy found no food whatseover in her body.
Buskey also pleaded guilty to giving his son cocaine. He is expected to be sentenced to 25 years on the murder charge and two years on the drug charge. Both Charlotte and her brother tested positive for the drug. Sentencing is set for March, WRGB said.
According to the Times-Union, he is forbidden from any contact with his son, now the same age as Charlotte when he killed her.
Buskey was an amateur MMA fighter in New York, fighting his last fight in 2019. He also fought a single kickboxing match in 2022.
