The mother and grandparents of an 8-year-old German girl are accused of locking her away in a room for nearly her entire life, stunting her development so much that she now struggles to walk up stairs or “overcome uneven ground,” local authorities say.
The child, referred to only as “Maria” by German media, was reportedly freed on Sept. 23 after being cut off from society for seven years.
“The girl has never seen the outside world,” senior prosecutor Patrick Baron Von Grotthuss told the German news agency DPA.
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Maria was freed after cops caught wind of a rumor earlier this year that a young child may be trapped inside her grandparents’ home, The Guardian reported.
Now in state custody, the girl told doctors that she’d previously gone her whole life without riding in a car or seeing a forest, the local newspaper Sauerlandkurier reported, citing documents from a local children’s hospital.
Many questions remain unanswered in the case, including what prompted the girl’s family to allegedly lock her up from the outside world.
While woefully underdeveloped physically and socially, local investigators reportedly said the child was not malnourished and did not show signs of physical abuse. She knows how to speak and walk, but does neither well.
The girl was placed with an emergency foster family after a hospital stay, The Guardian reported.
The public prosecutor’s office in Siegen, Germany, said the child’s mother and grandparents are now under investigation, but did not name the trio.
Von Grotthuss said the girl’s family was refusing to work with investigators and would not answer questions about their alleged motive.
Local reports have since shed light on the girl’s troubled home life, however, starting with when she was still an infant.
Back in 2014, the year of Maria’s birth, her mother allegedly told the girl’s father, whom she’d separated from, that she wished to bring her 6-month-old daughter with her to live in Italy, The Guardian reported.
The mother, identified as 47-year-old “Rosemarie G” by the tabloid Bild, reportedly still attests that she did move to Calabria, in Southwest Italy, in 2015 with Maria.
The girl’s father said he was sent a forwarding address in Italy in 2015, but he’s always had doubts about Maria’s true whereabouts, he told SauerlandKurier this year.
The father, who was not named, said he alerted Germany’s child protection services in 2015 that he saw his chil’'s mother walking around Attendorn, a town of about 25,000 residents near Cologne, several times.
Authorities reportedly intervened and tracked down the child’s grandparents for questioning, but they assured officers that Maria’s mother had dashed to Italy and not turned back, CBS News reported.
The father reportedly did not give up hope in finding his lost daughter, however. He told SauerlandKurier he regularly sent letters and birthday presents to the address he was given in Italy, but they were always returned unopened.
A break in the search for the girl came earlier this year, when child protection services said they’d received anonymous tips that the mother was in Attendorn.
Again, investigators reportedly tried to reach the grandparents for questioning but were refused access to their home. Attempts to obtain a search warrant were initially denied due to a lack of evidence, CBS News reported, but later fulfilled after police called the home and the girl’s mother picked up.
Police raided the home to make the horrifying discovery. The girl’s mother and grandparents were taken into custody on a charges of illegal deprivation of liberty and abuse, and could face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty, reported Bild.
German prosecutors said other family acquaintances are being questioned for a potential role in keeping the child hidden, CBS News reported.
