Left: Tristan Hull. Right: Brittany Hull (Marathon County Jail).
The Wisconsin stepmother of a 15-year-old girl who weighed just 58 pounds and was forced to stand with her hands up "for hours" in a locked bedroom is headed to prison.
Brittany Hull, 33, was sentenced Tuesday to serve seven years behind bars plus four years' probation after she pleaded guilty to chronic neglect of a child with great bodily harm, court records say. The intentional child abuse charge was dismissed, but read in during sentencing. She's prohibited from contacting the victim and must take a parenting class, according to the online court file.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Hull's husband and the girl's father, 41-year-old Tristan Hull, pleaded guilty to the same charge last year. He was sentenced to four years in prison.
According to a criminal complaint, the Marathon County Sheriff's Office responded on Oct. 15, 2023, to a home in Rib Mountain, 90 miles east of Green Bay, for a medical emergency. When cops arrived, Tristan Hull told them his daughter was drinking a protein shake when she started to have trouble breathing. She "stiffened up" and became unresponsive, the affidavit said.
Paramedics spent roughly 25 minutes performing CPR on the girl until they stabilized her and transported her to a local hospital. Her father claimed she had health problems, but only mentioned a condition that caused her poor blood circulation, the affidavit said.
The girl was flown to another hospital where "her organs began to fail because of severe dehydration," cops wrote. She also went into bone marrow failure due to malnutrition, according to the complaint. The girl was intubated for five days. During that time, doctors ruled out any condition that would make it hard to gain weight. Medical staff determined she was at least 30 pounds underweight for a girl of her age and was suffering from "severe malnutrition."
Just by being in the hospital for eight days — and away from her father and stepmother — she gained nearly 5 pounds and was able to increase her calorie intake, cops said.
Detectives spoke with the family's pastor, who noticed the girl's health "steadily decline" over the years. The Hull kids attended a children's program once a week. The pastor said the girl would have trouble focusing in class because "she is literally starving." When she was given a snack, she would "inhale" it, the pastor told cops. She would stuff food in her pockets and sneak off to other parts of the church to eat, according to the affidavit.
Brittany Hull allegedly blamed her stepdaughter's condition on her ADHD, but doctors said nothing was preventing the girl from eating properly. She took her stepdaughter to a dietitian, but was not following the recommendations, cops noted.
Once she was feeling better, detectives spoke to the girl. She allegedly explained how her father and stepmother treated her differently from her siblings. The girl said her stepmother, who had been in her life for roughly 10 years, was "very strict with her when it came to eating, such as not allowing her to eat snacks," the complaint stated. While her two siblings were having breakfast, she was not allowed. Investigators discovered there was plenty of food in the house and her siblings did not have nutritional problems, per the affidavit.
Investigators also allegedly observed locks on the girl's bedroom doors and windows, along with a door alarm. The girl said her father and stepmother told her she had to have a special diet because of her ADHD. Brittany Hull allegedly refused to discuss her diet, and if she raised the issue, it would lead to arguments, the complaint said. She was also allegedly forced to eat away from the rest of the family during mealtime. The girl said Brittany Hull limited her water intake to 16 ounces a day, the complaint said. Sometimes she was so weak her stepmother spoon-fed her, according to cops.
Cops also recovered surveillance footage from the camera in the girl's bedroom, which allegedly showed she was "forced to stand with her hands up for hours," the affidavit said. Tristan and Brittany Hull would walk into the room and make her raise her hands higher, "even though she is visibly crying and shaking."
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