An eight-year-old girl was released after her mother and grandparents locked her in a room in western Germany in Attendorn when she was less than a year old. She was found in a state of underdevelopment, as evidenced by the fact that she “could hardly climb stairs”.
Doctors who examined the fictitious name “Maria” found no signs of physical abuse or malnutrition, city officials said in a statement. Despite this, during the exam, the girl said that she had never seen a forest and had not been in a car.
The eight-year-old girl can talk and walk, but “could hardly climb stairs or walk on uneven terrain” and never managed to “see much of the outside world,” prosecutor Patrick Baron von Grotthuss said. , in statements to the local press.
The fact that the mother was going to move to Italy, the girl’s father was informed even before the birth of the child through a note left in his car. However, after seeing “Rosemary G” (not his real name), with whom he broke up, in his homeland in 2015 after the birth of a child, the man reported the situation to the child protection authorities. She said she saw her mother and children near the house of the girl’s maternal grandparents in Germany.
The accusation was denied by Rosemary G, who again assured the authorities that she had left the country, The Guardian reported.
Local authorities did not reinvestigate the case until July this year, after a neighbor couple reported a child who had been stuck in his grandparents’ house for years to the police.
An investigation was launched, and in September of this year, the Italian police informed the German organizations responsible for the protection of minors that the mother and daughter had never lived at the address indicated as their home in Italy.
A few days later, the police found the girl at her grandparents’ house, hiding in a room with her mother.
It is still unknown why the mother, grandparents kept the girl closed for more than seven years, as they refused to answer police interrogations.
The case is being investigated by the prosecutor of the city of Siegen, who believes that the child and mother never left the city of Attendorn, Germany. A mother can serve up to ten years in prison for abuse, for keeping a kidnapped minor in captivity.
