A 5-year-old girl in Oregon weighed just 29.5 pounds when she was rushed to a Portland hospital last fall—her father allegedly fearing “suffering from seizures or throwing a fit.”
But according to an arrest affidavit obtained by The Oregonian on Wednesday, doctors allegedly made a harrowing discovery while examining the child. Her ribs and spinal bones were visible, and open sores surrounded her mouth. Her arms were filled with scrapes and cuts. Her feet were swollen, and her ankles were so weak that doctors said she must’ve been tied up for an extended period, the affidavit said.
The Randall Children’s Hospital’s official diagnosis for the girl, according to the court records: “Torture.”
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An investigation into the poor girl’s injuries was opened. Detectives quickly determined the likely culprit behind her suffering was allegedly her own father, 30-year-old Javon Markquez Ingram. He was arrested and faces multiple charges of criminal mistreatment and assault.
According to the court documents cited by The Oregonian, which were also requested by The Daily Beast on Thursday, police interviews with the child and Ingram brought more terrifying details to light.
The girl, who was not named in the documents, allegedly told detectives that her father regularly tied her to a door using “dollar store zip ties and duct tape,” and put her into a dog collar that would shock her. He’d then leave her in a bathroom or a shed, restrained in a high chair, the filing says.
Assisting in the torture, police said, was 45-year-old Larissa Danielle Ducan, who is not related to the girl.
The child said the duo would beat her with a belt when she’d go to the bathroom, and that Ingram would shove socks in her mouth whenever she was “whiny,” a prosecutor wrote in an affidavit.
Detectives said the girl had never attended school, never received medical care, and was only served blended food. Her body is filled with “lasting and prominent scars,” which include scars around her eyes from being blindfolded, and on the sides of her mouth from being gagged, the affidavit said.
Making the girl’s terror even more sickening, Ingram regularly recorded his acts, the affidavit added. That allegedly included videos from Ingram’s phone that showed the girl being forced to run laps around their home as punishment, her hands tied behind her back.
During a search of Ingram’s home in November, police said they found multiple zip ties, duct tape, and a shock collar next to a bed.
Ingram initially chalked up his daughter’s injuries to “self harm,” the affidavit said, but investigators said he later confessed.
“I’ve done some horrible things in these pictures,” he told police as he looked at photos of his daughter’s injuries, according to the affidavit obtained by The Oregonian. “I know what I did was (expletive) up.”
Ingram also allegedly admitted to some of the acts in writing.
“I Javon Ingram did tie, bound, and zip tie and hold you in place to calm and have you in a controlled state,” Ingram wrote, according to the affidavit, before asking officers, “So what am I being charged with, torture?”
The girl moved in with Ingram when she was two after her mom lost custody for methamphetamine addiction, the affidavit said. The alleged abuse by Ingram and Ducan began in Jan. 2019 and continued through Nov. 2021, police said.
Ingram was indicted last week on 24 counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment, three counts of first-degree assault, nine counts of third-degree assault, and is being held without bail. He pleaded not guilty on Tuesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
An arrest warrant is out for Ducan, who faces seven counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment, three counts of first-degree assault, and two counts of third-degree assault.
Court documents say the girl now lives with her grandmother.
