Woman sentenced for her role in running a house of horrors where children were paddled, starved, locked in dog cages, and chained
"Nobody knew anything or did something for these children,” one investigator wrote in a complaint. “It is surreal and baffling that this was happening."
lawandcrime.com
Trio of women accused of horribly abusing 6 children for nearly a decade will take plea deals
Jayme Kushman, 37, Jamie Sena, 29, and Lora Melancon, 42, stand accused of a combined 51 child abuse-related charges. Plea deals will drop most of the charges.
lawandcrime.com
One of three New Mexico women previously facing a combined 51 child abuse charges was sentenced after recently entering into a plea agreement with prosecutors, Law&Crime has learned.
Jamie Kay Sena, 29, pleaded no contest on July 7 to four counts of child abuse that does not result in death or great bodily harm.
Jayme Kushman, 37, Jamie Sena, 29, and Lora Melancon, 42, were taken into custody throughout a series of arrests that began in late August 2022 and carried on into September last year
For “numerous years” spanning nearly a decade, six children between the ages of 5 and 16 – including Sena’s own children, younger relatives of Kushman, a neighboring child and a foster child – were subject to various forms of physical and emotional abuse, a criminal complaint obtained by the Rio Ranch Observer alleges.
In December 2022, allegations surfaced that a homeless couple may have traded their infant girl to Kushman for a travel trailer several years prior. The child’s mother later told the media that there was no trade arrangement for giving the baby away to Kushman. The 2-week-old was ultimately removed from Kushman’s home by the Children, Youth and Families Department when she tested positive for methamphetamine, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
In July 2022, six children were removed from Kushman’s residence when a CYFD supervisor and two NMSP officers found that sewage was backed up, the building reeked of urine, no running water, chains attached to walls, and a padlock on at least one of the beds.
“They used to keep them in dog cages,” a CYFD investigator tells an NMSP officer in a body-worn camera video from the day the children were removed from the Kushman place for good. “We’ve taken these kids away before for being in dog cages.”
According to the NMSP, the children told law enforcement that they were routinely chained up, beaten with wooden paddles, and starved as punishment for taking food from the fridge. A resulting investigation found videos of the abuse, police said, including the children’s screams, and a boy “being smothered in his own vomit.”
Officers also said they found an image of children “eating spaghetti from inside a filthy bathtub with their bare hands and naked.”
