Adopted child was starved, left outside to die

www.msnbc.msn.com

updated 9/30/2011 7:16:22 PM ET

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — The parents of a 13-year-old girl adopted from Ethiopia have been accused of starving and locking the girl outside — resulting in hypothermia that killed her.

Hanna Williams was found dead in her backyard on May 12, naked and wrapped in a sheet. She had been living with her adoptive parents, Larry and Carri Williams, since coming to America from Ethiopia in 2008.

Larry Williams, 47, and Carri Williams, 40, were arrested Thursday in Skagit County and are charged with homicide by abuse. They are being held in lieu of $500,000 bail.

Skagit Count Prosecutor Richard Weyrich told NBC station KING 5 that Hanna Williams' death ranks right up there among the worst cases he's ever prosecuted.

According to the charging documents, Carri Williams is alleged to have talked about how much she disliked her two adopted Ethiopian children, a 10-year-old boy and Hanna. The couple have six biological children.

"She died of hypothermia and you know part of that relates to having lost so much weight over the past year, months ... she had lost nearly 30 pounds," Weyrich told KING 5.

According to allegations in the charging documents, Carri and Larry Williams starved Hanna for days, put her in a locked closet and forced her to sleep outside in the barn in the cold. She wasn't allowed to use the bathroom in the house, instead having to go to a porta-potty behind the barn. In addition, according to an affidavit, Hanna was struck daily with a plumbing tool, a flexible plastic tube with a round ball on the end.

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In the documents, a book entitled "To Train Up a Child," was referenced. Weyrich says it includes punishment techniques the Williamses mimicked. There have been other child abuse cases linked to the book across the country, he said.

tags: child abuse
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