Center: Susan Helton (Comal County Jail). Background: The makeshift cages Helton used to confine her daughter and son (Comal County District Attorney's Office).
A Texas woman will spend the next several decades behind bars for a litany of prolonged child abuse meted out to her teenage daughter and son, authorities in the Lone Star State announced this week.
In late January, Susan Rae Helton, 53, was convicted by a jury of her peers on four counts of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury, according to the Comal County District Attorney's Office.
Jurors also determined the sentence — 20 years for each count. Later, 466th District Court Judge Stephanie Bascon assessed the sentences for the first and second counts, for the first child, to run concurrently, or at the same time; she did the same for counts three and four, for the second child. She then "stacked" the sentences for each child, resulting in terms of 20 years in prison for each child abused, according to prosecutors. The defendant will have to serve at least half of her combined 40-year sentence before she is eligible for parole.
The names of the victims are not a matter of public record.
The crimes date back to the summer of 2018, according to Comal County Jail records. At the time, a Child Protective Services investigation relayed concerns over physical abuse and neglect of two of Helton's adopted children to the New Braunfels Police Department.
"Helton had been a foster care mother and over the years had adopted eight children who had been prior victims of child abuse or neglect," the DA's office said in a press release. "From the start of the investigation, the CPS worker was shocked by the size and stature of two of the children, with Victim #1 being 14 years old but only weighing 48 pounds and Victim #2, age 13, weighing only 50 pounds."
Fears of continued abuse and neglect were soon borne out.
During the investigation, all of the children living with the defendant were interviewed. Two of the children told investigators they were starved and physically abused with a belt if they were caught "stealing" food from the kitchen. The victims also said they were largely confined to small triangular cages during the day. One of the children said they were often kept in their cage overnight — another effort aimed at making sure they did not "steal food."
Those accounts were corroborated by the other children in the house, according to law enforcement. The other children described the girl and boy being locked up in their cages for up to two or three weeks at a time when they were "in trouble."
"As evidence emerged, it became clear that Helton targeted these two children," the DA's office said.
During a surprise CPS visit, an investigator found baby gates used to confine the children – and asked the victims to assemble them. Helton herself was asked to set up the gates in the configuration she used when the children slept and admitted to confining them in the gates because they were "sugar-seeking" and stealing food.
As the investigation continued, law enforcement learned that all of the children in the house were homeschooled and that the defendant regularly failed to follow up on doctors' referrals. It was eventually learned that both victims had gained only six pounds and had grown only three inches during the five years they had lived with Helton.
All the children were removed from the residence and provided proper nutrition, and the two victims gained over eight pounds in less than a month, according to the DA's office. The victims were diagnosed with severe malnutrition and failure to thrive.
During a two-week trial, prosecutors provided jurors with several pieces of expert testimony.
On the witness stand, Dr. Shona Rabon of Dell Children's Medical Center testified that she has treated hundreds of pediatric patients over the course of her career and said the Helton case was one of the worst cases of malnourishment she had ever encountered.
To hear the expert tell it, the children were not growing due to the absence of caloric intake and proper nutrition.
"It was as simple as that," Rabon told the jury.
Both victims also took the stand to address their captor.
The female victim testified Helton forced her to stand inside the baby gates for most of the day while doing exercises, reading, completing homework — and that she ate and slept there. She also said she has continuous nightmares of being hunted down and trapped by the defendant.
The male victim testified life with Helton was "rough" and he was constantly trying to keep himself and his sister alive. He also said he never got enough food and that if he obtained food without permission the defendant would beat him with a belt or put him back in the cage.
The defendant took the stand in her own defense.
Helton disputed claims of using the belt to spank the children, said she never forced them to perform excessive exercise as punishment, and said the children never ate inside the cages. During cross-examination, the defendant admitted to keeping the children in the cages as a matter of convenience to give herself a break and said the girl slept in the cage for upward of 18 months total.
"Susan Helton took possession of these children [and was] supposed to be the forever home they yearned for," prosecutor Jessica Frazier told the jury during closing arguments. "And what did she do? She caged them like animals. She punished them on purpose. She punished them by taking away the basic needs for a child. I'm going to ask you to free them from these cages once and for all. Free them from the cages she has had them in for all these years."
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