'Trapped in Hell': Family Accused of Keeping Autistic Woman in Cage, Making Her Eat Mom's Ashes

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Daily Beast


A 22-year-old woman with disabilities was subjected to horrific abuse by five family members who threatened to kill her if she left their property, federal prosecutors said.

ELISHA BROWN
07.27.18 4:36 PM ET

When the mother of a Louisiana woman with autism died in 2015, relatives took the 22-year-old in. But instead of caring for her, the family held her captive and subjected the young woman to months of horrific abuse, including forcing her to live in an outdoor cage and eat her deceased mother’s ashes, a federal indictment alleges.

On Thursday, five members of the Knope family were charged in a federal court in New Orleans for their roles in the “forced labor” conspiracy. The clan allegedly abused the woman, who is only identified in court papers as D.P., for 10 months, threatening to kill her if she tried to escape their Amite property, according to the Justice Department.

Four family members—42-year-old Raylaine Knope, 45-year-old Terry Knope II, 23-year-old Jody Lambert, and 20-year-old Taylor Knope—face up to life in prison if found guilty of forced labor. Additionally, 21-year-old Bridget Lambert, Raylaine Knope’s daughter, was charged “for conspiring to obtain the forced labor of D.P.,” according to the DOJ.

Federal prosecutors also charged the father, Terry Knope II, with government theft and a hate crime: He allegedly embezzled over $8,000 in Social Security benefits from D.P., and once shot her with a BB gun because of her disability, court records allege. He and Raylaine Knope were charged with attempted sex trafficking, as well.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/trapped-in-hell-family-accused-of-keeping-autistic-woman-in-cage-making-her-eat-moms-ashes

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[dalton99a]

1. Truly horrific details

[Solly Mack]

2. From the first time the article mentioned Knope family, all I could think of was the Snopes family.

Faulkner's creation come to life.

After, I read the rest of the Knopes as Snopes.

Sick fucks.

[Dopers_Greed]

3. Trump's next pardons?

He would probably set them up with ICE jobs.

[marble falls]

13. The next staff at HHS.

[Initech]

4. That might be one of the absolute worst sentences I've ever read.

Sick fuckers, lock them all up!

[iluvtennis]

5. What evilness. Through them under the jail.

[Volaris]

6. What the fuck.

I like to think that human beings as a species have evolved beyond our original capacity for such base cruelties. Apparently not.

It's a good thing I'm not a judge because 3 things would happen:

The adults would spend the rest of their lives in the darkest hole I could find (and since this was an act of domestic terrorism against an American citizen, I'd be seriously looking for a way to send them to gitmo).

The KID would do 5-10 years without question, probabtion, or parole, AND THEN I would require this backwoods, poorly-raised-to-hate-others child to attend college AS A FORM OF COMMUNITY SERVICE in LA or New York (about the most diverse place I could think of that's a NOT white-trash MAGA red-state hellhole) until she graduated and could do something useful for her fellow citizens BESIDES spend the rest of her otherwise worthless-ass life in jail (just like mommy and daddy).

I don't condone it. But dear lord do stories like this make me understand WHY capital punishment.

And I shouldn't judge cause I honestly don't know, but by the look of those mug shots, some real Brilliant Winners there...something tell me they didn't vote for Hillary...
LOCK THEM UP.

[3Hotdogs]

8. Didn't vote for Hillary? Shows what you know. In order to vote, they would have had to put down the

Jax beer cans and leave the Duck family re-runs.

[Roy Rolling]

9. Voter Incentive

They really wanted a lower corporate tax rate to create jobs.

[sakabatou]

7. May they all burn in hell

[Snellius]

10. What people are capable of when they believe they will go unpunished!

Or even encouraged! Human beings, under certain circumstances, are capable of almost anything. And not just by psychotic maniacs from the backwoods of Louisiana. Many of the perpetrators of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany actually thought of themselves as "decent" and "civilized" elite.

[yallerdawg]

11. When driving through Lousiana, remember -

never go past the first gas station at the exit off I-10.

[bucolic_frolic]

12. They probably believe that is cannibalism

because a fetus is a person so ashes are a person too