Inset, left to right: Justin Redd and Brittney Redd (Escambia County Sheriff's Office). Background: The area in Florida where the couple lived with Justin Redd's 9-year-old daughter (Google Maps).
A Florida father and his wife allegedly starved a 9-year-old girl until she weighed just 45 pounds, kept her locked inside a mostly empty bedroom with a metal chain on the outside of the door, and fed her little more than oatmeal twice a day while convincing doctors and others that the child suffered from severe behavioral and eating disorders, authorities say.
Justin Patrick Redd, 33, and his wife, Brittney Michelle Redd, 28, are each charged with aggravated child abuse, child neglect causing great bodily harm, and failing to require school attendance, according to an Escambia County Sheriff's Office probable cause affidavit.
The monthslong investigation began after the girl was admitted to Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital in late December 2024 weighing about 45 pounds and suffering from blood in her urine before she was transferred to UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville because of severe malnutrition and hematuria, investigators wrote.
Doctors described the child as "very malnourished and thin appearing," with muscle atrophy in her arms and legs, dry, scaly skin that was later linked to malnutrition, and bruising. During her roughly two-week stay at Shands, she met all of her daily caloric needs and gained approximately 19 pounds, investigators noted.
After arriving at the hospital, the girl told medical staff and investigators that she had been living with her father and stepmother since he gained custody in 2023 and that the couple routinely locked her inside her bedroom "with a metal chain outside her door."
According to the affidavit, she said she was forced to wear only a pull-up diaper, withdrawn from school, and typically fed only oatmeal twice a day, with cold canned beans on occasion.
"She was not allowed to eat what everyone else ate," police wrote in the affidavit.
The child also alleged she was denied regular access to a bathroom, forcing her to soil herself because her bedroom door remained locked. Afterward, she said Brittney Redd made her take cold showers before ordering her to "shake off like a dog as they didn't have a towel for her."
She further told investigators she slept on the floor without a blanket and was forbidden from having friends or celebrating holidays or birthdays. The defendants repeatedly told her she was a "danger to others" and a "thief." She also believed the adults' claim that cameras monitored her room around the clock, despite no cameras being found in the room.
Investigators wrote that the couple offered a starkly different explanation, claiming the girl suffered from medical and psychiatric problems, including self-harm, refusal to eat, bathroom issues, and an obsession with calories that caused her dramatic weight loss. They also denied locking her in her room.
But as detectives gathered medical, counseling and school records, they concluded those claims were repeatedly contradicted by objective evidence.
Hospital records showed the girl consistently gained weight whenever she was removed from the defendants' custody. During one hospitalization in 2024, she gained nearly 9 pounds in four days. During another admission later that year, she gained more than 8 pounds in less than two weeks. After her December hospitalization, she gained about 19 pounds while under medical care.
Doctors also observed that she would "repeatedly ask staff for more food, not less, and would eat everything they gave her," the affidavit states.
School records similarly undermined the couple's account, investigators said.
Although Justin Redd claimed doctors recommended removing the girl from school, detectives found no medical documentation supporting that assertion. Instead, records showed Justin Redd withdrew her from school in May 2024 and did not enroll her again until after her hospitalization months later.
Teachers described the child as a typical third-grader who consistently ate all of her meals at school and exhibited none of the behavioral, bathroom or eating problems the couple described, according to investigators.
The affidavit also alleges Justin and Brittney Redd missed 14 scheduled medical appointments while the child's condition continued to deteriorate.
Investigators ultimately concluded the evidence — including the girl's statements, her rapid recoveries outside the home, medical documentation, and school records — supported charges against both defendants.
After being discharged from Shands in January, the girl was placed with another family member. Investigators reported that by March she had nearly doubled her weight, her blood work had returned to normal, and she was back in a traditional classroom, where teachers described her as sweet, shy and eating normally.
The Redds both pleaded not guilty to all charges. They remain in the Escambia County Jail ahead of their July 31 arraignments.