A 12-year-old girl was found wandering down a country road when a passerby saw her and stopped to help.
The girl was held captive for a week, tied to a bedpost. The child was assaulted and forced to drink alcohol to keep her in a daze. Amazingly, she managed to chew through her restraints and escape.
Upon her rescue, the girl was found with marks on her wrists from the restraints and her braces damaged from chewing them off.
Also found at the scene were the remains of her mother and brother. This information led to the arrest of the woman’s live-in boyfriend- José Paulino Pascual-Reyes, authorities said Thursday.
Tallapoosa County Sheriff Jimmy Abbett said The girl, “is a hero for surviving the incident and coming forward with the information that she provided us in order to charge him.”.
CBSNews reported,
José Paulino Pascual-Reyes, 37, was charged with kidnapping and multiple counts of capital murder in the slayings of what authorities said were the girl’s 29-year-old mother and her son, who court records show was younger than 14.
It was reported that the girl was held captive on July 24, when her mother and brother were killed.
Abbett stated that Reyes was in the country illegally from Mexico after being deported once and returning without proper documentation.
The Sheriff stated that the mother and two children entered the United States from Mexico as well in 2017 to seek asylum. Immigration officials had not yet decided their claims.
At a news conference on Tuesday held by Tallapoosa County Sheriff Jimmy Abbett, he said the girl had not been reported missing by anyone and said she is “doing well”.
“She’s a hero,” Abbett said. “She’s safe, and we want to keep her that way.”
Authorities have not yet released the name of the girl.
