Pennsylvania couple face new charges in alleged child abuse of teen sons
A Lehigh County couple is charged with new counts Friday following child abuse allegations involving their twin 15-year-old sons.
"They have a host of medical issues including severe malnutrition, heart arrhythmia, they're suffering from vitamin deficiencies, scurvy," Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan said.
Photos provided by his office last month, he said, show the teens' alleged abuse at the hands of their parents.
"They were treated at the hospital over the course of multiple days before they were able to be released from the hospital," Holihan said.
The boys' mother, Tracy Dechant, and stepfather, Joshua Dechant, were first charged last month. Holihan says the two turned themselves in Friday and have now been arraigned on multiple additional charges, including conspiracy to commit murder and aggravated assault.
"Some of the evidence obtained since the date of their original arrest includes digital evidence, pictures taken, videos that were obtained that the parents both knew what was happening," Holihan said.
Prosecutors say the boys, who were homeschooled, suffered emotional and physical abuse at the hands of their mother and stepfather "at this level of neglect" for about two years.
"That abuse included denial of food and water. Using the withdraw of food and water as punishment for the boys, forcing them to walk around inside and outside naked as punishment, forcing them to stand outside naked in freezing temperatures, forcing them to sleep on the floor, forcing them to share a single blanket between the two boys," Holihan said.
The twins weighed 53 and 55 pounds when they were found. The district attorney's office adds that other children were in the home.
"There is no indication that there was any type of treatment like this against the other children that remained in the home," Sarah Heimbach, the senior deputy district attorney in Lehigh County, said.
The district attorney added the twins are out of the hospital and in the care of family.
Preliminary hearings for the couple are scheduled for next week. Court records show both were able to post $200,000 bail.
