Texas Twins Escape House of Horrors Where They Were Forced to Drink Own Urine and Eat Own Feces
Police said a pair of Texas twins escaped a house of horrors in Harris County after breaking free from their handcuffs and fleeing to a neighbor's home.
Their mother and her boyfriend are now in jail. The twins, a boy and a girl, both 16 years old, showed up at a neighbor's home in Cypress at around 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Crime Online reported.
A woman who helped the Texas twins said they were barefoot and shivering. Even though it was cold, the boy was not wearing a shirt, and they both looked very thin and hungry.
The woman took the kids into her home and fed them as they recounted the torture they endured at the hands of their own mother and her boyfriend inside their home.
"They were so skinny and so frail. They just looked like they had been through a lot," the woman noted.
She said the twins told her their mom kept them locked in "the laundry room, naked, zip tied from the ankles and handcuffed from the wrist."
The Texas twins told investigators that they lived in the feces-filled laundry room and they were forced to defecate and urinate there since their mom forbade them to use the bathroom and then eat and drink it.
The teens also claimed that their mother forced them to use dirty mop water when they wanted to take a bath. Both children were reportedly malnourished and had cuts and scars. The boy had a healing fractured bone. The Texas twins said their 12-year-old brother was also being abused.
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Texas Twins Escaped the House of Horrors
The woman, who helped the Texas twins, said her doorbell camera caught the teens asking for help and showing their handcuffs.
"When they came inside, they were like, 'We are not here to hurt you... We just need help. We just broke out of our handcuffs. Our mom had us handcuffed in the laundry room'," the woman told KTRK-TV.
She said the teenagers informed her that they had not eaten in more than a week and were starving, ABC 7 reported. They received a snack from the woman, who said the twins consumed everything she had placed in front of them.
According to the boy, he found the handcuff key in his mom's purse, hid it in his mouth, and then tried to run for freedom at around 5 a.m. He said they knocked on several doors before a neighbor took them in.
The Texas twins said they also attempted to escape the day before, but their mom caught them and locked them back up.
Texas Twins' Siblings Abused Too in the House of Horrors
When they learned that the twins had escaped, Zaikiya Duncan, 40, and her boyfriend, Jova Terrell, 27, left the house. According to the Daily Mail, they were caught later that day in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after a four-hour drive.
Seven children were saved from their abusive mom. They narrated the years of torture she inflicted on them, which included forcing them to drink household cleaners and bleach and pouring it on their genitals until it burned their skin.
The boy said he and his twin sister were also given dangerous doses of Benadryl. The children also told police that they were subject to extreme beatings, with their mom using extension cords, curtain rods, and other metal sticks to hit them.
They said their mom's boyfriend, Terrell, often punched the boy. Child protection services took care of Duncan's other five children, who were between 7 and 14 years old. Four of them were left with relatives in Louisiana, and the fifth was with them.
Nicholas Menina, the father of the children, lives in Baton Rouge with his wife. He works as a photographer and media director for a Baptist evangelical megachurch. However, he did not comment when the Daily Mail asked him about the incident.
It was not the first time Duncan had been arrested and charged in relation to child abuse. According to Louisiana court documents from 10 years ago, a then five-year-old kid of hers was taken from school to a local hospital to be treated for burns to his feet, genitals, and other body parts.
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Written by: Bert Hoover
WATCH: Twin Teens in Texas Held Captive by Family Rescued by Neighbor: Police - From ABC News