A south Georgia couple was arrested last month cruelty to children charges after the mother allegedly tried to smother her daughter with a blanket, and the girl’s stepfather threatened to stab her “in the heart with a butcher knife.”
The Colquitt County Sheriff’s Office released information about the case this week but withheld the suspects’ names to protect the victim’s identity. Both are charged with first degree cruelty to children and two counts of third degree cruelty to children, according to the Moultrie Observer.
The mother also faces charges of aggravated assault, possession of a controlled substance, drugs out of their original container, and obstruction of an officer, and the stepfather has been charged with terroristic threats and battery-family violence.
Sheriff’s investigator Chris Robinson told the Observer that the woman’s son captured the incident on video. In the video, Robinson said, the woman is seen trying unsuccessfully to take the girl’s cell phone and then grabbing a Hello Kitty blanket and attempting to “smother” the daughter.
“The daughter was able to fight her mother off after getting some blows to the side of her head,” Robinson said. “[The woman] then went to get the stepfather who was outside.”
The stepfather, he said, “snatched the phone from the child then smashed it onto a TV stand,” then threw it at his stepdaughter, who had “slight abrasions on her arms.
“After throwing the phone, [the man] told the girl ‘I’m gonna stab you in the heart with a butcher knife,’” Robinson said.
Deputies were dispatched shortly afterward, but Robinson didn’t know who called 911.
Robinson said that the mother “had to be wrangled into the back of a patrol unit,” but the stepfather was taken into custody without incident.
They’re being held without bond, he said, and the children, whose ages were not given, were taken from the scene by family members.
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