'This is how hell feels': Cudahy couple charged with neglect, abuse and torture of teen daughter

A Cudahy couple have been charged with promoting and allowing the extensive, ongoing neglect, abuse and torture of the husband's 15-year-old daughter, who was rescued earlier this month after she managed to obtain a cellphone and ask her aunt to call the police.

Much of the abuse was administered by a 15-year-old step-sibling whom the parents had given authority to "discipline" the victim, prosecutors say.

Kevin M. Boon, 47, and Felicia Boon, 34, each face counts of repeated physical abuse of a child, causing mental harm to a child, neglect causing emotional damage, false imprisonment and two counts of chronic neglect causing bodily harm, all as parties to the crimes.

Three other children involved in the abuse, ages 15, 14 and 12, are charged in juvenile court, and prosecutors have petitioned to have the oldest moved to adult court.

The couple made initial court appearances Monday and are each free on $10,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 7. Kevin Boon does not have a lawyer but filed a box of documents on his own with the clerk of courts purporting to challenge the authority of officials to arrest and charge him.

Both are under strict orders to have no contact with the victim or the three children charged in juvenile court but can have supervised contact with their four younger children, currently the subjects of Children In Need of Protective Services, or CHIPS, petitions. 

According to the criminal complaint:

Police went to the home in the 3600 block of East Lunham Avenue on the afternoon of Dec. 5 after receiving a call about a girl throwing boiling water on another girl. The officer could see juveniles inside, but the juveniles did not respond to knocks and announcements that police were at the door.

One was seen on the phone, saying, "Hurry up dad, police are here and are knocking on the front and back door. I don't know what to do." 

Boon arrived moments later and let the officer inside. The juveniles denied any kind of fight had taken place and appeared fine. The officer left. 

But back at the station, he learned about the aunt's call about the victim, who was not among the juveniles he had spoken to and was not mentioned by them or Boon. He returned to Boon's home and asked about the girl. Boon said she was fine and was in an upstairs bedroom.

The officer noted a stench of urine so strong his eyes watered and his nose burned. The victim could barely stand as she exited the bedroom in tattered clothing, with bruises and cuts to her face and head.

Other family members interrupted as the officer tried to ask questions. After she was led to another room, she told him she was scared and had not had anything to eat or drink in three days.

“I want to tell you guys the truth, but I’m afraid that you will send me back home,” she said.

She said she'd been kept in her room since about August and didn't know the date. She was later taken to a hospital where doctors found a long list of injuries from beatings and scaldings administered by the step-siblings, and of which the defendants were well aware.

The girl told police she was pulled from school in November 2017 in favor of homeschooling. But she said the lessons mostly consisted of Felicia Boon making her copy passages from the Bible.

At some point, she said, her father installed an alarm that would go off if the door opened and began using plastic ties to secure the door. The step-siblings then used the ties to bind the victim's wrists to her bed on other occasions.

The victim had just one set of clothing, which was extremely soiled. She said she was made to shower in the clothes while her stepmother sprayed her with bleach.

She told police the other 15-year-old beat her with a belt and a pole and once choked her with a cord so hard she passed out. The other children started scalding her with water late last month.

"This is how hell feels," she said the other 15-year-old told her.

When she escaped once from the attacks in the bedroom and told her father the others were burning her with water, she said Kevin Boon simply ordered her back upstairs.