Pittsburgh-area woman accused of chaining daughter with special needs to bed
UPPER TYRONE TOWNSHIP, Pa. (KDKA) — A woman from Fayette County is accused of abusing her daughter with special needs.
In the early morning hours of Tuesday, a young woman in Upper Tyrone Township came home after midnight and heard her sister screaming from her room. When that sister went into the room, she saw her 22-year-old sister with special needs handcuffed to a bed with a swollen face from a chain wrapped around her neck and a bicycle chain around her waist.
Authorities said she took cell phone pictures and videos and freed her adopted sister before calling the police.
According to the criminal complaint, shortly after the young woman called the police, her 55-year-old mother, MaryLou Dewitt, came home. DeWitt realized her daughter had phoned the police and began cleaning the scene inside the house. She then allegedly grabbed any evidence and fled.
Using cell phone data and other technology, the police found her driving on the Fort Pitt Bridge in Pittsburgh and arrested her.
Dewitt faces numerous charges, including false imprisonment, unlawful restraint and neglect of care.
"It's a very challenging incident," Trooper Rocco Gagliardi said. "Every incident isn't that same. Now, do some have more impact than others? Yes. We try to do a lot for special needs. And we have a great interest in Special Olympics. And we do a lot to try to educate on how to handle scenes like this."
Dewitt worked as a nurse at Spectrum Charter School in Monroeville, which said on Wednesday that she was no longer employed.
The daughter who called law enforcement said her special needs sister would regularly have to defecate and urinate in her pants without being allowed to use the bathroom.
A this point, the 55-year-old mother remains under arrest in Fayette County. An updated condition of the 22-year-old daughter is not clear at this time.