A New Jersey pair is accused of holding a teen girl captive in their Gloucester Township home, where she was allegedly sexually abused and housed in a dog cage.
Brenda Spencer, 38, and Branndon Mosley, 41, have been charged with multiple criminal counts including kidnapping, aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child in connection to the abuse of an 18-year-old who escaped their residence on May 8, Camden County prosecutors announced Wednesday.
Mosely has also been charged with several counts of sexual assault.
The alleged abuse began in 2018, when the girl was taken out of school in the sixth grade at Spencer’s direction, prosecutors said. She told authorities that her earliest days of captivity included a year spent in a dog crate.
She said she was later forced to live in a padlocked bathroom while bound by chains. She was temporarily freed when family came to visit.
“At other times, she was forced to live in a bare room with just a bucket to use instead of a toilet,” and was beaten with a belt, prosecutors claim. The teen said the room had an alarm system to alert her alleged captors if she tried to leave.
Authorities learned of the abuse after the girl escaped the residence with the help of a neighbor. They offered few further details other that stating officials met with the victim at a Wawa convenience store shortly after she was freed, according to NBC 10 Philadelphia.
Upon searching Spencer and Mosley’s residence, detectives said a 13-year-old girl was also found to be living in “squalid conditions alongside numerous dogs, chinchillas and other animals.” That teen had also been taken out of school years earlier, according to prosecutors.
Both suspects were taken into custody on Sunday. Specifics of the relationship between the parties involved was not made clear.
Authorities said Spencer was unemployed, while Mosley worked for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority as a train conductor.
