Left to right: Jaclyn Machelle Barnett and Daniel Alan Wright (Baxter County Jail).
A mother and stepfather in Arkansas will spend two decades behind bars for keeping the woman's 15-year-old son locked naked in a bathroom without food for days on end, only letting him leave to go to school and keeping the door locked with a ratchet strap.
Baxter County Circuit Judge Andrew Bailey on Monday ordered Jaclyn Machelle Barnett and Daniel Alan Wright to each serve 20 years in a state correctional facility after they pleaded guilty to multiple felonies, including counts of first-degree kidnapping, false imprisonment, endangering the welfare of a minor, and abuse of a minor, court records show. The judge also tacked on a seven-year suspended sentence while crediting the couple with 194 days of time already served.
Barnett and Wright were each facing more than 100 criminal charges and had both been scheduled to begin their trials this week before changing their pleas.
During the sentencing hearing, Baxter County Prosecuting Attorney David Ethredge described the abuse suffered by the victim as "horrific," local AM radio station KTLO reported.
"For years, these children were abused, manipulated, and exploited," Ethredge reportedly said. "Rather than providing love, safety, and protection, these defendants chose greed and self-interest."
Bailey said the sentencing was a "sad day for our city and our state," but noted that the case at least launched a "statewide effort to address the failure of the Department of Human Services," which had reportedly received at least 29 calls about the victim since 2013.
As Law&Crime previously reported, officers with the Mountain Home Police Department on Nov. 2, 2024, responded to the family's upstairs apartment after a downstairs neighbor heard what the neighbor believed to be a child's cries for help.
Upon arriving, an officer went to the bedroom and spoke with a boy who said he was locked in the upstairs bathroom. The officer knocked on the door to the apartment upstairs where two juveniles, ages 10 and 11, met him at the door. The kids allegedly said their parents were working and claimed to have no knowledge of anyone being locked in the bathroom.
But investigators told Springfield, Missouri, CBS affiliate KOLR that the children's response was likely the result of being coached by Barnett and Wright.
"It's in my opinion, it's in the opinion of some others as well, that these kids are no doubt coached, no doubt. Whether it be fear for themselves or what have you," lead investigator Mike Day told the station.
Day said the children brought him to the back room from where the noise appeared to have originated.
"In the master bedroom, they found a ratchet strap that was attached to a bedpost, that was attached to the bathroom door where [the child] could not get out. The sergeant talked to the child behind the door, eventually let him out, and he discovered the child was in there with no clothes, and in fact, the child didn't want to come out because he was embarrassed, because he had no clothes. He hadn't eaten. He was hungry."
Investigators said the boy told them he was regularly locked inside the bathroom and was only allowed to leave to attend school. While the two other children slept in bunk beds, the victim reportedly slept on a wooden pallet left in the bathroom.
During interviews with police, Barnett and Wright both claimed to have no idea what the child was doing naked in the bathroom, instead blaming it on the other children playing. However, police said that when they tasked the 10- and 11-year-olds with using the ratchet strap, neither child was able to do so. Barnett and Wright then modified their story, asserting that they had actually been using the strap to make sure the bathroom door stayed shut due to a leaky faucet.
Day explained that authorities decided to charge Barnett and Wright with 112 counts of endangerment, among other crimes, based on the number of days the boy went to school in 2024.
"We know with the child stating in his forensic interview that he was held in this bathroom with no lights, no food every night, but he's let out to go to school," he told KTLO. "So that being he was let out and he's put back, then he's let out and he's put back. Where [the prosecutor] came up with the number, just to start is 'let's go back to January. Let's find out how many days of school he was actually in school.' So that's how we did it based on those numbers, to come up with a number as he was in school from January up until the time he was located, 112 times this year."