Murray woman charged with child torture after years of extensive physical abuse, police say

MURRAY, Utah (ABC4) — A Murray woman is facing multiple charges after physically abusing her two young children for years, according to the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office.

The woman, 42, whose identity is being withheld to protect the identity of the victims, is charged in Salt Lake County with child torture (first-degree felony), aggravated child abuse (first-degree felony), obstruction of justice (second-degree felony), along with multiple other charges related to child abuse.

A Sandy Police officer investigated the report of child abuse, which came from the woman’s 11-year-old son. The boy told police that his mother and her ex-boyfriend “hurt him a lot,” according to court documents.

The boy stated that his mother would often “get mad at him and use a belt on him and his 8-year-old sister,” court documents state. The boy recalled a time when his mother “spanked him approximately 40 times” and his sister around 10 times, using a red belt.

The boy described extensive injuries on his back and buttocks due to this incident, and said that his mother told him to throw the belt away and make up a story to explain his injuries. She reportedly also took his phone and threw it at a window, causing it to break.

The 11-year-old child also recalled other instances of abuse in which his mother allegedly told him to blame the injuries on her then-boyfriend.

“[The boy] said [his mother] would often blame [her boyfriend] for [his] injuries, but he clarified that [his mother] was abusing him. [The boy] said this occurred in 2021, and he could not remember all the details of what [his mother] did to him when she would ‘beat and spank him,’ but he ‘got really hurt during these times,'” court documents state.

In the investigation, the child also reported that his mother would use a wooden spoon, and on certain occasions, was chased with a belt and hit continuously on the “neck, arms, legs, and face,” court documents state.

These incidents allegedly occurred when the child was around 7 or 8 years old.

According to police, the boy also said that his mother’s boyfriend would “make him stand in the corner for ‘eight hours’ or ‘the whole day.” Additionally, the boy said he was forced to “run three hundred laps” while everyone else was inside the home, and would not be allowed to wear a jacket even though it was at night.

The child also told police that his mother’s ex-boyfriend would sit in the house and watch him run to ensure that he could not take a break.

According to police, the child had been interviewed previously regarding potential abuse. The boy stated that his mother had instructed him to lie and “not say anything bad about her” during those interviews. The child also said that when he talked about his mother’s ex-boyfriend, the case was thrown away and that “any time they say something about [him] it does not get heard, and it just gets thrown out,” the boy told police.

Court documents also detail incidents of abuse by the mother against her 8-year-old daughter. The daughter told police about these incidents, revealing that she was also abused, though her brother was targeted more heavily. She described her brother’s injuries, stating he had multiple scars and that the “scars were bleeding.”

“It wasn’t until after the defendant was in custody that the victims in this case felt safe to come forward with the history of abuse that they’ve endured for many years,” police wrote in the indictment. “The defendant has an extensive violent criminal history, including stalking, aggravated assault, protective order violations, domestic violence in the presence of children, assault, and property damage.”

The defendant is currently being held in Salt Lake County Jail without bail on the aforementioned charges, as well as multiple other court cases.

“The State believes that the defendant is not only a danger to the victims in the Case in Chief, but also to the victims in her other cases, as well as the community at large,” court documents state.

No further information is available at this time.