MONSTROUS

Moms Arrested for Keeping Daughter in Coffin-Sized Cabinet as Punishment: Cops

Another child in the home had not seen a doctor or a dentist since infancy, investigators said.

Two women have been charged with felony child abuse after it was discovered they’d locked their daughter in a cabinet space smaller than a coffin for 13 hours, police in Tennessee said. Terri Powell, 52, and Hattie Swiat, 38, were arrested after investigators with the Greenbrier Police Department and the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services acted on a child abuse complaint earlier this month. The women had recently moved out of Ohio with their two girls, aged 15 and 9, police said. The teenager, Powell’s biological daughter, was allegedly forced into a cabinet in the women’s small camper as punishment for using her mother’s phone to access social media, according to Smokey Barn News. The younger child, Swiat’s biological daughter, was in need of medical care and had not seen a doctor or a dentist since infancy, authorities said. Neither child appeared to be enrolled in school, a spokesperson for the Greenbrier Police Department said. “They watch videos about school but there was no structure to it,” he added.