Couple in Minnesota Charged with Starving 8-Year-Old, Tying Her Up So She Couldn’t Access Medicine

(The AEGIS Alliance) – ELK RIVER, MINNESOTA – A husband and wife are being charged with starving their 8-year-old daughter, whose weight was less than 50 lbs before she died.

30-year-old Brett Hallow and 28-year-old Sarah Hallow were each charged with one count of murder in the second degree and manslaughter in the first degree. They are in police custody without bond and have been since last Friday.

The Hallows are accused of the physical abuse of their daughter Autumn in their apartment and had been tying her up if they thought she was misbehaving. It’s also alleged that they withheld food from the young girl, which caused her to wither away and she became emaciated, according to charging documents and the Star Tribune.

Last week on Thursday, authorities responded to the couple’s apartment in Elk River. When authorities arrived at the scene, Sarah Hallow was in the process of performing chest compressions on Autumn inside her bedroom, People reports.

It’s alleged that the Hallows told police they found Autumn partly underwater in the bathtub and she was face-down. They said they only moved her into the bedroom to make attempts at reviving her.

Investigators found blood inside the bathroom and ”marks on her forehead” that looked like they were from pins. Autumn’s fingers were blue also, authorities said.

An autopsy was performed on Autumn’s remains that revealed there were puncture wounds on her head and abdomen and she had also been bleeding from her brain. Her hands and hips also had signs of bruising.

“Based on the condition of Autumn’s body, law enforcement believed she had been deceased for some time,” charging documents say, which also says that Autumn whose muscles had wasted away and she also had significant loss of hair, that her death was likely caused from asphyxiation.

She only weighed 45 lbs at the time of her death.

The couple’s son, age 6. told police that his parents were tying up Autumn using a belt and then they would stuff her inside a sleeping bag, with only her head exposed. The son also mentioned that they used a shirt to tie up her hands behind her back.

Autumn was treated like this when she “behaved badly,” the son said. Her 10-year-old sister made the same claims and alleged that Autumn was being prevented from taking medication.

Brett and Sarah Hallow have both denied any wrongdoing.

Kyle James Lee – The AEGIS Alliance – This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.