Four face charges of torturing boys; Police say pair burned, starved, kept in closet

Lubbock Avalanche Journal ^ | 11/7/06 | Jason Womack

[hispanarepublicana]

Four face charges of torturing boys Police say pair burned, starved, forced to sleep in closet BY JASON WOMACK

The Lubbock County Criminal District Attorney's Office filed criminal charges on Monday against four people who police said systematically tortured, beat and starved two boys.

Police said the boys' stepmother and father - 37-year-old Melissa D. Lively and 40-year-old Steve A. Lively - routinely burned the boys with a battery charger, forced them to sleep in a closet and fed them habanero peppers.

They each face four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Each charge carries a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison.

"The conditions were not life threatening, but they would have been over time," Police investigator Derek Danner said, calling the conditions some of the worst he has ever seen.

According to reports, the boys' siblings choked them, attempted to gouge their eyes out and cut them with knives and razor blades.

Investigators named the boys' stepbrother Jason C. Lively, 19, and family friend Kyle B. Sexton, 20, in arrest warrants alleging that the pair also beat and burned the boys.

Jason C. Lively is also accused of pinching one of the boys with pliers, striking him with a bat and shooting him dozens of times with a BB gun, according to police reports that charge him with eight counts of aggravated assault.

Child Protective Services has removed the boys from the home, but a spokesperson for the agency said he could not elaborate on the details and could not provide the date that the boys were taken into custody.

Another boy, whose name was not released due to his age, was arrested in September on suspicion of beating the boys.

Patrol officers first discovered the abuse two months ago after one of the boys was found at a 7-Eleven begging for food.

The boy, 16, had gone to the store on three different days, according to police reports. He wore the same clothes each day and had bruises around his eyes and cuts on his forearm.

He was noticeably thin and wore a belt cinched tightly around his waist.

Police said the boy lied about his name and told officers that he received his injuries in a fight.

Officers questioned the boy for two hours before determining where he lived.

When they returned the boy to his home, his siblings told police that the boy and his brother regularly stole food from the family's refrigerator and that they burned them with the battery charger when questioning them about the missing food, according to police reports.

Detectives said the boys were reluctant to speak about their living conditions.

During interviews outside the home, the boys told investigators that they had lived in a closet located off the garage for the last three months and that their father beat them and fed them peppers as a form of punishment.

One of the boys told police he was forced to eat three and a half habanero peppers at one time, according to reports.

In statements to police, the boys said the dogs ate better than they did, and that they were limited to a package of Ramen noodles a day.

They had not been to school in over a year, police said.

According to reports, the family had lived in Terry County and for a time in New Mexico. But the family apparently moved when they were reported to Child Protective Services, police reports state.

Greg Cunningham, a spokesperson for the agency, said he could not discuss the specific details of the Lively case. He did, however, say that families will move once they are reported.

"Unfortunately, it is not an uncommon occurrence," he said. "Families do occasionally move to avoid a CPS investigation."

A phone call placed to the Lively home Monday was not returned.

[gcruse]

"Why is the word "heterosexual agenda" a keyword?"

LOL

Not gonna go there, not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent.