I agree with you both. I had a friend from ages 6-14 who was horribly abused. All us kids in the neighborhood knew it. I remember sitting on the curb with her at age 7 or 8 and saying, "Do you know what child abuse is? You are being abused." I mean she had whip marks on her and spoke to some of us kids about the abuse.
Strangely, not one of us kids told a parent or anyone. Although it was obvious to the adults that the parents were weird and super strict and then slowly began to isolate her. The girl was always being punished. She was always grounded. It got longer and longer and more and more frequent until she just stopped being allowed out at all. Eventually they took her out of school and put her in a private school, I think. But the same kind of strange thing as here- we stopped seeing her during the day but neighbors saw her forced to do calisthenics on the lawn at 3:00 a.m. and yard work.
When I got to junior high, I hadn't seen her in about a year. I actually ditched school one day and went to the other junior high to see if she had been enrolled there (because that's what her parents were telling neighbors). None of the kids heard of her.
When I started ninth grade I finally hopped the fence and looked through her window. I could see in. It looked like someone was living in there. I recall a potty type chair (we were 14). And stuff i can't recall that made it seem like she was eating all her food in there.
I called a child abuse hotline. (Still didn't tell my parents!) They sent an officer out who spoke to me and walked with me to the house. I showed them which room. This was after telling them everything about the abuse and how she disappeared. The officer (female) looked in.
The next thing I recall was it was now night time, and officers (she had called for back up) had been waiting for hours. The father and mother came home but went right inside. (I don;t remember if the girl was with them). The police knocked on the door and ordered them to come out. The dad opened the door with a gun in his hand and the lady cop de-gunned him as they pile-drived him or something. It was awesome to everyone (by that time the whole neighborhood was out on the street trying to see what would happen) that it was a female cop who took the lead because the father was a real creepy, stern, patriarch and misogynist.
In the end, she was located and put in foster care for a couple years. Our family got to take her out a couple times during that. But her parents got her back and they all left the state. Never heard from her again.
I had nightmares about her for years, about me going into her room, where she sits in the dark with graffiti all over the walls that she had written, (I don't know if that was true in real life. I don;t think so) and she turns her head toward me and she's insane. But she tells me, "Run. He's coming."
I had that dream several times, with variations. Scary as hell.
Her case was nothing like this one. Not close to as bad. My long point is that even though she went to public schools, and in the middle there one private school, none of the schools tracked her when she stopped going, to my knowledge. I mean kids can and are yanked form schools and kept at home all the time in these abusive situations. So what can be done about that?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...in-kids-says-family-left-kitten-dumpster.html
Oh and the thought that they could have had a wonderful cushy life, if they had managed their finances better, nurtured their children and allowed them to go on their way at the appropriate times and probably have been enjoying grandchildren just eats me up. They instead put more energy into tormenting their own flesh and blood. Sick!
