Khaberni - In a crime against humanity, a family of "obese" individuals imprisoned a teenager for years and deprived her of food, while the US authorities charged them with chronic child neglect and put them behind bars.
The horrific details of this incident trace back to the rescue of a teenager weighing only 35 pounds (about 15.8 kg), after she had been kept imprisoned by her family inside a "trailer home" in Oneida area, and repeatedly punished by withholding food from her. She was so emaciated that the police initially thought she was only 6 years old when they removed her from the home she lived in with her biological father Walter Goodman (47 years old) and his wife and their family.
On August 21, Goodman called emergency services 911 asking for help after his daughter became severely ill and fell into a "coma" after days without food. He then claimed that his daughter "had autism" and that she had refused to eat for several days. However, the responders found the girl on the brink of death, and she was quickly transported to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with severe injuries including multiple organ dysfunction, a heart disorder, pancreatitis, acute hepatitis, severe malnutrition, along with other complications, according to court documents obtained by Fox 11 News.
The assistant district attorney for Outagamie County, Julie Ducoyne, said the girl appeared "like a skeleton", adding that she was "just skin and bones" weighing only 35 pounds.
Despite the father's claims that the girl had caused this condition to herself, evidence soon pointed out that Goodman and his "very obese" family might be responsible for the maltreatment. According to court documents, Walter previously told a friend, "If she misbehaves, I won't feed her today." He added, "I keep her locked in her bedroom with a camera pointed at her, and this is where she stays."
Text messages between Walter, his wife Melissa Goodman (51 years old), their daughter, and her friend—Savannah Leviver and Kayla Stimler (29 and 28 years old)—revealed an environment filled with abuse. Stimler wrote to Melissa, "Just so you know, [the girl] was taking more than one bite at a time, and when Savannah confronted her, she continued to argue with her, so I used the belt," to which Melissa replied: "Okay."
In other messages, family members expressed their strong hatred for the teenager who moved in with them in 2020 after her biological mother was imprisoned. The stepmother wrote, "I wish she would just leave," and Leviver responded, "I just want to hit her stupid head with a karate chop." Even the father himself told a friend he wished he could kill her and added, "If I could leave her in the forest I would do that."
According to prosecution documents, the family executed their disdain for the girl by locking her in a bedroom without a mattress and preventing her from going out or playing for years, in addition to beating her, starving her, and depriving her of water as punishment.
Ducoyne said, "This is one of the most horrific cases of child neglect I've seen in my 25-year career."
After her rescue, the girl was transferred to a hospital, and it's reported that she has significantly recovered and is now in good condition under the care of another family. Nurses reported that she showed no resistance to eating—contrary to her father's claims—and she told them that her father would get angry if she ate too much.
This week, the authorities charged Goodman, Leviver, and Stimler with chronic child neglect, and they remain behind bars with a bail set over 100,000 dollars.
