14 DAY TRIAL // Police in Raleigh, N.C., have arrested a couple for physically abusing their 4-year-old daughter after she was discovered zip-tied to her baby gate. Gerald Thomas Swinehart and Marlaine Victoria Coffey are now in custody, listwns reports.
They have been charged with intentional felony child abuse causing serious physical injury.
Their 4-year-old girl was found zip-tied to her baby gate by her wrists and ankles, but police discovered other signs of abuse on her as well.
“Arrest warrants indicate that the girl's 26-year-old father, Gerald Thomas Swinehart, pushed and kicked her until her lower teeth punched through her lower lip,” the aforementioned media outlet notes.
The mother helped him tie the child to the baby gate with the plastic fasteners usually used for electric cables.
Both parents are being held on a $150,000 (€114,696) bond and, if found guilty by a court of law, will spend years behind bars for their violent treatment of their baby daughter.