When people say that there are truly evil people in this world, they are serious.  Before I continue, I would like to warn you that the following report is not for the faint of heart.   

   In February a girl with bare, purple feet and a bleeding face was found wandering the streets of Madison.  Her name was not revealed to protect her identity and safety.  Neighbors had rarely seen her outside, but when she did emerge, she was seen rummaging through the garbage and eating scraps.  Mark Stuntebeck, one of the neighbors, said he called child protective services within the last two years of seeing the teenager, but doesn’t know if anything was done about it.

   Mike Vega, who lives about a mile from the girl’s family, said he was driving down the street when he saw her walking down the street in thin pajamas and bare feet, crying on a cold February 6 afternoon.  She had a bleeding gash on her nose and other small scrapes all over her.  Weighing only 70 pounds, Vega mistook her for an 8-year-old.

  “It was the most shocking thing I have ever seen,” Vega commented.  “A little girl looking like that.  I’ve never seen anybody look like that, to be honest.”  He stopped and rolled down his window to ask if she was okay, and she told him she needed help.

  The girl got into Vega’s car.  At first she was scared, but she calmed down and became a bit more comfortable when Vega showed her pictures of his three sons and a Mary Poppins video on his cellphone.

   According to police reports, the girl told the police everything that she had been through.

   Apparently, she was beaten over the smallest things.  Once she had been beaten just for showing too much skin when she was bent over and her blouse hung off her.  She had been forced to stay in an unfinished basement of her father and stepmother’s home since 2006 that had an alarm that sounded if she tried to go upstairs.  If she did happen to escape, the stepmother would literally throw her back down the stairs.  She had also been threatened numerous times that she would be killed if she tried to escape again.

   The girl said she ate what she could find in the garbage and would sometimes be forced to eat and drink her ‘leavings.’  If she was caught eating without permission, the couple would make her throw out the remaining food and vomit the rest back up.  She was home schooled with a third grade work book.

   The father, stepmother, and stepbrother have been arrested, each being held on $20,000 bail.  So the next time you think your parents are being “evil” look back on this incident as a reminder that it could be worse.