A Wisconsin teen weighing just 35 pounds was rescued from a house of horrors where her grossly obese family allegedly kept her prisoner for years and ironically withheld food as punishment.
The girl was so emaciated that she was mistaken for a 6 year old when police pulled her from the Oneida trailer where she lived with her biological father, 47-year-old Walter Goodman, and his wife and her family.
Goodman called 9-11 dispatchers on Aug. 21 asking for help when his daughter became violently sick and “comatose” after going days without food, with the dad claiming she was “autistic” and had refused to eat for days.
Responders found the girl close to death, and rushed her to the hospital where she was diagnosed with multiple organ dysfunctions, cardia dysfunction, pancreatitis, severe hepatitis, and severe malnutrition among other complications, court documents obtained by Fox 11 News showed.
And text messages between Walter and his wife — Melissa Goodman, 51 — and her daughter and daughter’s girlfriend — Savanna Lefever and Kayla Stemler, 29 and 28 — also suggested an environment of severe of abuse, according to prosecutors.
“Just so you know [the girl] was taking more than one bite at a time and when Savanna confronted her, she continued to argue with her, so I used the belt,” Stemler wrote in one text to her girlfriend’s mother — who responded with “fine.”
In other texts, the family talked about how much they disliked the teen, who moved in with them in 2020 after her biological mother was sent to prison.
“Wish she’d just go away,” the girl’s stepmother wrote at one point.
“I just want to karate kick her dumb head,” LaFever responded.
Her father even shared similar disdain for his own daughter to a friend, who recalled him telling her things like “I wish I could kill you.”
“If I could leave her somewhere in the woods, I’d leave her,” Goodman allegedly once said.
And the family allegedly followed through on their disdain for the girl — locking her in a bedroom without a mattress, preventing her from leaving her room or playing outside for years, and beating her and depriving her of food and water as punishment, according to prosecuting documents.
The girl was hospitalized after being taken from the house, and has reportedly made a remarkable recovery and is doing well after being released to the care of separate family.
Nurses said the girl had no resistance to food — as Goodman claimed — and told them that her father would get angry if she ate too much.
The Goodmans, LeFever and Stemler were all charged with chronic child neglect this week.
They remain behind bars under cash bail of $100,000 and more.
