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13-Year-Old Freed After Being Locked in a Windowless Closet for 4 Years by Her Parents
In the 1930s, a teen girl was discovered by authorities to be barely hanging on after being brutally abused by her parents
The recent news of an emaciated man who alleged he was held captive in a room by his stepmother for the past 20 years before setting it on fire has generated headlines around the world because of its shocking nature. Sadly, it wouldn’t be the first of this type of incident. There are cases dotting the landscape from our past of a similar nature, including nearly a century ago when a teen girl was liberated from a windowless closet where she had been kept for the previous four years by her parents.
In 1931 Washington, D.C., the country was appalled by the discovery of 13-year-old Edith Riley, who was found crouching in a locked windowless closet measuring about six feet square, where she had spent the previous four years just barely holding on. When authorities arrived and located her, the poor girl weighed only 38 pounds. An investigation revealed that she had the intellect of an approximate five-year-old and because of being kept in the dark by herself, had trouble seeing and difficulty communicating. Her diet had consisted of mostly liquids, she was wearing only a…
