A mother in Arkansas allegedly handcuffed her 8-year-old son to a chair and let him starve because she was “jealous” of him.
Melissa Miranda, 33, of Fayetteville, Arkansas was arrested Saturday, Jan. 27 and charged with second-degree domestic battering, aggravated assault on a family member, kidnapping, tampering with physical evidence, terroristic threatening, and endangering the welfare of a minor, PEOPLE reports.
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Miranda’s arrest comes after local authorities were asked by the Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services to help them investigate a hotline report that claimed an 8-year-old boy in the home was being handcuffed to furniture and being denied food.
Authorities then questioned Miranda’s 17-year-old daughter, who provided them with an audio recording of the mother-of-five threatening to cut the boy because he had stolen candy. The recording also allegedly included Miranda telling the 8-year-old that she’d abandon him in the cold. Police arrested Miranda after hearing the recording.
Miranda allegedly confessed to handcuffing her son to a desk in their living room to keep him from eating junk food. She also confessed to denying him food, claiming that he didn’t eat dinner on average of four nights a week for several months after he once complained about her cooking. When the 8-year-old began having accidents on the living room carpet because he was unable to get to the bathroom, Miranda made him sleep on a plastic garbage bag.
Teachers at the boy’s school told detectives that they had noticed changes in the boy beginning in November, telling local station KATV that he had become “very thin,” “his eyes had become sunken, as had his cheeks, and his skin tone changed,” that he had been seen bleeding through his shirt, he complained of his legs hurting as he walked, and he would hoard food and ask for food from other students.
During the investigation, Miranda told detectives that she was “jealous that her mother loved the victim more … than her mother loved her,” which lead her to abuse the 8-year-old.
Miranda’s boyfriend, 28-year-old Josue Tovias, was also arrested and charged with the same offenses as well as an additional charge of permitting child abuse.
Both suspects are currently being held in the Washington County Detention Center on bonds of $50,000 each. Miranda’s children have been placed in the care of the Arkansas Department of Health and Human Services.
