Minnesota Couple Accused Of Abandoning 5-Year-Old In The Forest As Punishment For Wetting His Pants


A Minnesota couple is under arrest for allegedly dropping their 5-year-old boy off in a forest as punishment for wetting his pants.

The incident took place in St. Peter, where police say 42-year-old Lynda Michel and 32-year-old Gregory Wilson took the boy to a forest along a highway in the town. As TwinCities.com reported, a passing motorist spotted the young boy crying near the forest and came to his aide.

The boy told the motorist that he had been left there by his parents because he was “naughty.”

The parents told police that they turned around quickly after leaving the boy in the forest but could not find him. Another passenger in the car with the couple told police he tried to talk the couple out of leaving the boy.

Police said they believe the boy had been abused over a long period, as they found multiple bruises on his back, buttocks, and hips.

This is not the only case of alleged abuse over a bathroom accident to make headlines. As Newsweek reported, a South Dakota woman was sentenced to 40 years in prison for beating her 2-year-old son to death with a studded belt after the boy wet his bed. The woman, Kylen Shangreaux, was accused of a number of other horrific abuses against the toddler.

“At Shangreaux’s sentencing earlier this week, assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Collins revealed that Kylen had 111 external injuries, with bruises on 70 percent of his body,” the report noted. “The child also suffered from what appeared to be cigarette burns on his head and broken ribs and was hemorrhaging in his abdomen and brain.”

Police said the worst abuse was focused on the boy’s genitals, which prosecutors said were “destroyed” in the beating that took the child’s life. Instead of trying to help the dying boy, Shangreaux instead tried to clean up the crime scene and hide evidence of the beating, prosecutors added.

At the women’s sentencing, her own family members spoke out against her, asking that the court impose the harshest possible sentence. The woman’s mother and sister also noted that they had helped to raise the boy.

The parents who left the 5-year-old boy alone in the forest for wetting himself now face a charge of gross misdemeanor malicious punishment of a child and misdemeanor domestic assault. The child was taken into protective custody and has been placed in foster care, the report noted.

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