Salinas – Neighbors in this tough, working-class neighborhood are so afraid of violence that, whenever they reported the abuse they suspected was going on at 501 Fremont St., they refused to give their names.
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“It was awful”, McMillin said.
The woman and teen were arrested and charged with child abuse, torture and mayhem.
The investigation began on Friday when a 9-year-old girl suffering from neglect and abuse was found near a house in Quincy, where Huntsman had recently moved.
In a Thursday afternoon press conference, Flippo said while DNA testing is still needed to confirm it, he’s convinced that the children found in Redding are the 3-year-old and 6-year-old reported missing out of Salinas.
Plumas County Sheriff Greg Hagwood has said that some officials were so shaken by the abuse endured by the girl that they might have to take time off to recover.
After questioning the suspects, police in Redding were directed to the storage unit where the bodies of the other children were found. The condition of the 9-year-old girl was not available Thursday.
Attorneys Douglas Prouty, who represents the 39-year-old, and Robert Zernich, who represents the teenager, each declined to remark.
Flippo said that case will be transferred to Monterey County for prosecution.
Authorities still don’t know when they died, but think it was around Thanksgiving. “To characterize beyond that would be speculation”, McMillin said.
The relationship between Huntsman and Curiel is uncertain, McMillin said. Enlarge Redding Police Department Huntsman, 39, and her boyfriend Gonzalo Curiel, 17, are likely facing murder charges for the two dead children.
McMillin would not describe what officers found, but said, “I would say at this point in time that the conditions were …such that it would cause someone to wonder how someone could raise a child in those conditions”, he said.
Flippo said his office will look into filing special circumstances in the case after Huntsman and Curiel have their preliminary hearings that would make the case eligible to be a death penalty case.
Authorities say they believe there may have been an older juvenile living at the home who was arrested last spring in a robbery case. The two children had not been seen when the child abuse investigation started. “One child was asleep, and the other children were doing homework”, McMillin said.
None of the five children living in the apartment was removed from her care because there was no evidence they were at risk, Robinson said.
McMillin said police had previously been called to the Huntsman residence twice in the past six months to check on potential child abuse. “More often than not it’s about poverty”.
Huntsman is not the mother of Delylah and Shaun, but her relationship to those children is undetermined, a social services official told CNN.
“Huntsman failed those children”.
Attempts to locate family members about this were unsuccessful. They called police in Redding.
The Salinas Police Department said, “We are all devastated by the nature of the abuse we’ve seen and are committed to bringing those responsible to justice”.
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The sheriff’s office notified Salinas police around 10 p.m. Sunday that two dead children had been found in Redding, a city in Shasta County, inside a plastic container in a rented storage unit, according to police. According to Anje Watson, organizing the event, the unit will be open for flowers, but the manager asks that nothing be left outside the storage unit.
