A Las Vegas couple has been charged with multiple counts of child abuse and neglect after police found six children suffering from horrendous abuse, including two found padlocked inside dog kennels.
One of those two, an 11-year-old, was unable to get out of the kennel on his own when police released him, KLAS said. The boy had “two black eyes that were swollen shut, multiple marks and bruises all over his body, and he was emaciated,” police said in a 21-page report that detailed the abuse.
A doctor who saw the child at the hospital said he would have died had he not received medical treatment and told detectives he had not seen a child so severely abused “since his military tour in Afghanistan where he observed children who had been dipped in hot oil.”
The boy was hospitalized in critical condition, but all six children had scars and marks all over their bodies.
Travis Doss, 31, reportedly told police he “beat [the child] pretty bad” but had “no choice,” according to court documents. Doss allegedly admitted beating the children with belts, cords, a skillet, and his hands and allowed a set of triplets to beat one of the other children.
The two children in the dog crates — 9 and 11 years old — were there to prevent them from stealing food at night, he said.
Doss and Amanda Stamper, 33, were charged with six counts each of child abuse or neglect resulting in substantial bodily harm. Doss has also been charged with sex trafficking and attempted murder.
Police were alerted to the situation on Sunday when employees at a Walgreens found Stamper and a 2-year-old hiding in a storeroom. She told police she was hiding from her husband, Doss, who had threatened to kill her.
Doss said he threatened to kill Stamper because she refused to help with the children because she wasn’t their mother, KSNV reported. She is the mother of a seventh child — the 2-year-old — who did not have the signs of abuse the other six children had. Doss told police he did not beat that child and that he never saw Stamper abuse any of the children.
Stamper told police that Doss told her on Saturday he thought the 11-year old boy was dead, because he had “kicked him in the head too heard.” She told police the boy “looked dead for the last five days.”
Stamper was charged because, prosecutors said, she witnessed the abuse and did nothing to stop it, KLAS said.
“Each and every child has scars, loop marks, belt marks, permanent marks of their physical abuse that this defendant witnessed over a period of at least one year and she did absolutely nothing,” prosecutors said in court on Monday.
Stamper’s public defender said she didn’t act because “If she had done anything, she would have been subjected to serious, serious abuse.”
Doss was ordered held on a $250,000 bond, while Stamper was given a $120,000 bond.
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[Featured image: Amanda Stamper and Travis Doss/Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department]