Idaho Parents Allegedly Abused Six-Year-Old Son, Left Him So Hungry He Ate His Pillow

An Idaho couple is accused of abusing their six-year-old son, and feeding him so little food that he ate his pillow, the Spokane Spokesman-Review is reporting.

Joy. T. Anderson, 30, and Melvin W. Bledsoe, 27, are both behind bars, facing felony charges of cruelty to a child.

Authorities say that their six-year-old son, whose name has not been released because he is a juvenile crime victim, was brought to their attention when Anderson, the boy’s stepmother, and Bledsoe, his biological father, brought him to a hospital.

The injuries the boy allegedly suffered at the hands of his parents are horrific: scabs all over his body, dried blood on his penis, a cauliflower ear (caused by repeated blows to the side of the head), ulcers on his leg. Some of the wounds were old, indicating that he had been denied medical care.

The worst injury was a split pancreas, that a nurse practitioner says could have been caused by a strong blow to the abdomen. That injury could have been fatal.

What’s more, hospital staff say the boy was vomiting and defecating pillow fluff, leading them to conclude that he was so hungry that he ate his pillow.

Authorities interviewed that parents’ neighbors, and those interviews revealed an horrific pattern of alleged abuse. One neighbor said that they often saw the boy lying face down on a bed with ropes tied around his wrists. That neighbor also said that he heard “the most eerie scream you could hear” coming from the home.

According to KHQ, Bledsoe had some rather flimsy explanations for the boy’s injuries, trying to pass him off as “clumsy” and having fallen off of his bike or down the stairs. When asked about the injuries to the boy’s penis, for example, Bledsoe allegedly said that he got it from “picking at himself.” When asked about an injury to the boy’s side and hip, possibly due to acid in his feces, Bledsoe allegedly said that the injury wasn’t there when he brought the boy to the hospital. Bledsoe allegedly tried to blame the injuries to the boy’s back from “sliding down rocks” at a nearby city park, and when asked about the rest of the injuries, Bledsoe allegedly said he had no idea where they came from.

Bledsoe is incarcerated at the Kootenai County Jail on $200,000 bond, facing a felony charge of injury to a child. Anderson faces the same charge and is held on $50,000 bond.

[Featured Image by Kootenai County Police]