Mother, Friend Charged with Locking Boy in Closet Face 53 Counts of Abuse

Staff and Wire Reports

OKLAHOMA CITY – A friend and the mother of an Oklahoma boy who said he was locked in apartment closets over four years are facing combined charges of 53 counts of child abuse for allegedly torturing and imprisoning the boy.

According to court documents, the abuse went on for the past 4 years and being locked in the closet was just the beginning.

Prosecutors allege that LaRhonda McCall, 37, and her friend, Steve Vern Hamilton, 38, beat the boy repeatedly -- with "fists, bike chains, cables, extension cords, and/or boards," leaving permanent scars.

The court documents state the boy endured being stabbed in the shoulder by his mom and hit over the head by Hamilton with a car jack handle. The documents also say the boy, identified only as B.M. was tied up and left naked covered in sugar water as a way of attracting insects to feed on him while inside a garage.

Another time, the charges allege, she poured alcohol on him and lit it on fire, burning the boy. She also allegedly forced him to stand barefoot in the snow for more than 45 minutes.

Much of the terror the boy went through happened in an apartment in northeast Oklahoma City. It was there the boy was believed to have been locked inside a closet. According to the court records, Steve Hamilton told police "He saw B.M. locked in the closet on at least 27 different occasions." The record goes on to state "LaRhonda would at least keep him in a locked closet sometimes all day or more."

As a result of the countless beatings and abuse, authorities say the boy received, McCall and Hamilton are facing a combined 53 counts of child abuse.

Read the court record documenting the 53 counts of child abuse.

Hamilton was asked by police why he never told anyone about the abuse, he said he was afraid McCall would get into trouble.

McCall and Hamilton were being held in the Oklahoma County jail on $400,000 bond each. Charging documents did not list an attorney for Hamilton or McCall, and the Oklahoma County prosecutor's office did not immediately return a call left after hours Thursday.

The boy, malnourished and covered in bruises and scars, sought help from a security guard at a National Guard armory on Sept. 25. The teen told police he spent most of the last 4 1/2 years locked inside bedroom closets at various apartments where the family lived and never attended school or received medical attention, authorities said.

The teenager's 18-year-old sister, Jaleasa McCall, told The Associated Press last month that she would bring her brother food and sympathy, but didn't have the courage to contact the authorities.

The boy and his six younger siblings have been placed in Department of Human Services custody.

Managers of the last two apartment complexes where the family most recently lived said they occasionally saw some of McCall's seven other children but never saw the teenage boy.

McCall was convicted of second-degree manslaughter in New York in 1996 in the death of her 2-year-old daughter and served six months jail time. Prosecutors in that case alleged McCall, who then went by LaRhonda Presley, essentially starved the toddler who died in February 1995, according to a New York grand jury indictment.

More on News9.com:
- Teen Claims He Was Locked In Closet For 4 Years 
- New Details Released in Case of Teen Locked in Closet
- Mother of Boy Locked in Closet Has Abusive History