3 NJ women charged for forcing 13-year-old to wear electric dog collar as punishment
Three New Jersey women have been arrested and charged for allegedly torturing a minor girl. It has been reported that Kelly, 43; Rachel, 20, and Rebecca Mennig, 18, forced the 13-year-old victim, identified only as “I.D.”, to wear an electric shock dog collar for many years, all the while denying her sufficient food and clothing. The accused also allegedly forced her to shoplift for them.
The women were taken into custody on March 1 and have been charged with aggravated assault, child abuse, and neglect for allegedly using the inhumane method to discipline the kid. All of them have been currently put behind bars at the Camden County jail while the child has been placed with a foster family following check-ups at a hospital. An arrest affidavit noted that the victim, whose relationship with all the three women has not been revealed to protect her identity, was “first made to wear the collar, some of which can deliver a jolt up to 4,500 volts or more, when she was 9.”
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Shock collars are reportedly banned in many nations because they lead to “psychological distress for your pets, including phobias and high levels of stress, and can result in unhealthy increases in heart rate and painful burns to your dog’s skin. Use of shock collars can also habituate your dog to pain and cause increases in aggression and fear-based behaviors,” as stated by the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
According to reports, local police came to know about the alleged abuse after a neighbor, Karen Villec, called 911 after the victim went to her house for help. Villec told The Daily Beast, “[I.D.] is standing there and she goes, ‘They’re shocking me! They’re shocking me!’ And she hands me this dog collar, which is like, vibrating in my hand. She lifts her head up and I can see the marks on her neck where they were shocking her. So my husband called 911, and I was in the kitchen with [I.D.], trying to calm her down.”
It has been said that Rachel was the one who first put the collar around the victim’s neck when she was just nine and in the fourth grade. The other two women also did the same with her and deprived her “of the appropriate amounts of food and clothing amenities.” Though they denied the accusations, another member living in the same house admitted to the cops that they had observed the dog shock collar used on ‘I.D.’ numerous times in the past as a form of punishment when she (I.D.) acts ‘bad.’”
Villec told NBC News: “I can imagine her getting starved to death. But all the other people are overweight in the house. So how do you like that?” Calling the women “trash,” Villec said that the girl “went to school yesterday, so I was happy to hear that.” She noted: “We all feel bad that nobody in the neighborhood knew about this. But you know what—everybody has secrets. And kids are really good at keeping secrets, because they’re afraid,” before adding: “If [anyone is] on the fence about doing anything to these three, please put the dog collar on and let me shock you.”