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11-Year-Old Boy Is Tortured By Parents, Locked In Basement, And Left To Starve

Eddie Carter and Ethan Kelly were like many young boys who were waiting to be adopted, they were hopeful yet realistic. When the day finally came in 2007 that they were given a permanent home, they were absolutely thrilled. Richard and Cynthia Kelly were the couple who adopted them but the reality of the situation soon sank in. Rather than giving them a kind home where they would care for them every day, they tortured the boys and locked them in the basement. All the while, the rest of the family was living upstairs and having a relatively normal life.

After being abused for a year by his adoptive parents, Eddie, the older brother, was able to escape. He was relinquished after the couple said that he had behavioral issues. The problem was, they still had Ethan, the younger child, and the abusive couple was torturing him. They would leave him locked up in a basement in their Alabama home, having a video camera locked on him to intimidate him. Every day, the boy would pray that he would die. It got so bad that he would be locked in the basement for up to 23 hours a day and they would put hot sauce in his food and pour alcohol or salt in his open wounds. It really was a horrible situation, and he had to endure it for quite some time.

Starting at the age of 11, Ethan was kept in the basement. After it all came to light, Ethan told the court that they would beat him with wooden paddles and belts and he had to bang his head against the wall. His adoptive parents would make him run laps around the yard and would find many other ways to make his life miserable. They continued to tell him that nobody loved him and that he was a bad child.

Eddie was also locked up in the basement for a long time. They would tell him that nobody knew he was down there and he would just sit in the corner and think about it all. When Ethan’s health started to drop significantly at the age of 14, he went to the hospital. He weighed only 55 pounds and that is when they knew that something was wrong. Today, he is 18 years old and a high school student. He also says that he forgives his adopted parents, even though they will never say they are sorry.