LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — A mentally disabled West Texas teenager who told a school worker she had been impregnated by her stepfather was found with her uterus removed when authorities discovered her body in her family’s partially burned home, according to an arrest warrant.
The mother of the 18-year-old who was found dead in Idalou, northeast of Lubbock, in February remained jailed Monday after being arrested last week on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a disabled person. The teenager’s stepfather is being held on three counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child. No one has been charged in the death, but the Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office has said more charges are coming.
The arrest warrant for the mother alleges the woman knew her husband was abusing her two daughters. The mother doesn’t yet face charges related to the younger daughter, who is 15.
The Associated Press generally doesn’t identify victims of sex crimes. The AP isn’t naming the 15-year-old girl’s family members because that could reveal her identity.
Online jail records did not list attorney for either the mother or her husband. A spokesman for the Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office didn’t return several phone calls Monday seeking comment.
According to the arrest warrant, the 18-year-old, who had the mental age of a 6 to 7 year old, had told a school worker on Jan. 29 that her stepfather had impregnated her.
“Mom told her not to tell anyone because Mom needed (the stepfather) to pay bills,” authorities wrote in the warrant.
The warrant alleges that the mother knew as early as 2008 that her husband was sexually assaulting her older daughter. The 18-year-old told a school counselor that her stepfather also abused her sister and that the sisters had talked about this and told their mother, according to the arrest warrant.
On Feb. 2, the teenager told an interviewer with the Children’s Advocacy Center that her stepfather had been touching her since she was 12. After that, the girls’ mother was told to have no contact with her husband, but he remained at their home, the arrest warrant says.
The mother later told investigators that her husband had been “intravenously using methamphetamines inside the home over an extended period of time,” the warrant says.
The 18-year-old was found dead, her throat slashed, on Feb. 10. Investigators have said that a fire was set to hide evidence.
The younger daughter told investigators on March 10 that her stepfather had been having sexual contact with her since she was 9 years old and that he had been sexually assaulting her two to five times a week for the past two to three years, according to the mother’s arrest warrant. The girl also told authorities she had seen her stepfather sexually assault her older sister.
The girl told investigators that her mother had kicked her husband out of their home after catching him about to sexually assault her two years ago, but that the mother allowed her husband to return after two months.
“By providing (the husband) access to her daughters after being made aware that (he) was molesting them, (the mother) aided (her husband) in the sexual assaults of her daughters,” according to the arrest warrant.