Inset: Zaikiya Duncan (Harris County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The block in Texas where Duncan allegedly abused her twin children (Google Maps).
A Texas mother was swiftly convicted of the horrific abuse and torture of her twin children just one day after her son testified how the siblings were restrained with handcuffs, starved, and forced to drink bleach. Jurors in Harris County took only an hour to convict Zaikiya Duncan, 43, on two counts of aggravated assault resulting in serious bodily injury.
According to court documents, deputies with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office responded to a residence in the 20000 block of Great Pines Drive at about 5:30 a.m. on Oct. 18, 2022, regarding a request for a welfare check of twin siblings, both of whom were 16 at the time. The caller told the dispatcher that the children, a boy and a girl, had knocked on their door, stating that they “escaped from their mother’s house.”
“The twin siblings were covered with bruises, were barefoot, and were partially clothed,” a probable cause affidavit said. “The siblings stated that they were starving.”
The neighbor’s doorbell camera showed the siblings asking her, “Can you help us?” as they held up their handcuffs.
“When they came inside, they were like, ‘We are not here to hurt you,'” the neighbor told Amarillo, Texas ABC affiliate KVII reported. “She was shaking with her handcuffs. She was like, ‘We are looking for help. We just need help. We just broke out of our handcuffs. Our mom had us handcuffed in the laundry room.'”
Duncan’s then-boyfriend, Jova Terrell, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of endangering a child last year and was sentenced to 18 months in a state correctional facility.
Inset: Jova Terrell (Harris County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The block in Texas where Duncan and Terrell allegedly abused her twin children (Google Maps).
Upon arriving at the scene, first responders located the children in a grisly state. Police said both kids’ “wrists had lacerations” that were “consistent with being restrained with handcuffs.”
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The brother’s wrists had blisters that were bleeding and both of his hands were swollen. The sister had similar injuries and was wearing a “gray plastic grocery bag around her neck that she stated she used as a shirt.”
As investigators continued speaking with the victims, the hardships they described only became more harrowing.
“Both complainants stated that they were handcuffed to the same black dolly located in the laundry room of the residence,” the affidavit said. “Both complainants informed deputies that their [mother] made them drink chemicals such as bleach [and] Lysol and would spray “Easy-Off” oven cleaner in their mouths if they talked too much. The defendant would also pour bleach on the children causing their skin to burn, including their genital area. They both stated that they do not remember the last time they have taken a shower and only have access to a mop bucket containing dirty water and when they needed to use the restroom, they would have to urinate/defecate on themselves.”
The sister also said that on at least one occasion, her brother “defecated” and their mother “made them both eat it and drink [the brother’s] urine.”
The kids said their mom “ordered all of her restraining equipment from Amazon,” including the handcuffs they escaped in.
They also claimed their mother gave them a mustard or relish sandwich one to three times a week, were only able to drink from the water valve on the washing machine, and were regularly made to take Benadryl to make them fall asleep.
The kids said they were only able to escape when the brother was able to get the handcuff key from their mom’s purse and hide it in his mouth overnight. Following the kids’ escape, Duncan and Terrell fled to Louisiana with her other children, but were arrested a short while later.
The brother, who is now 18, testified against his mother on Thursday, telling jurors that he believed his mother “hated” him and his sister.
“She told us to stop calling her mom,” he said from the stand, according to a courtroom report from the Houston Chronicle.
The neighbor who let the kids in after their escape previously told KVII that she would be following the proceedings to the end to make sure the victims’ mother got what she deserved.
“Give these abusers life in prison, like murderers, because that’s ultimately what it’s going to lead to,” she reportedly told the station.
Duncan will be sentenced on Monday.
