Two dead children were found in a storage unit in Redding, California, earlier this month after authorities discovered a beaten and starving 9-year-old girl in a locked car. A 39-year-old woman and her teenage boyfriend have been arrested on felony child abuse charges and are now being investigated in connection to the two homicides.
Officials first found the injured girl in a locked car in Quincy during a welfare check after receiving a tip from a
concerned citizen, The Sacramento Bee reported. The 9-year-old was reportedly starving, weighing only about 40 pounds, and had multiple fractures, including broken fingers, a dislocated jaw, and missing teeth, according to the newspaper.
"This has shaken my staff to the core,"
Sheriff Greg Hagwood told the Plumas County News. "That little girl had been subjected to the most unspeakable measure of torture for an extended period of time. This is child abuse, the likes of which we haven't experienced here [in Plumas County]."
The car was near an apartment belonging to Tami Joy Huntsman and her 17-year-old boyfriend, Gonzalo Curiel, and the couple was soon arrested on charges of child abuse and torture. Each of them is currently being held on $1 million bail.
But that's when things took an even darker turn. Police received another call from a concerned citizen asking about a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old supposedly involved in the case. Officers questioned Huntsman and Curiel in jail in a conversation that led them to the Redding storage unit, The Bee reported.
Inside were the bodies of the two young children.
It's not yet clear the relationship between the two dead children, the 9-year-old, and Huntsman, but
KSBW reported that the children are siblings and Huntsman is a female relative, but not their mother.
Two 12-year-old twins — a boy and a girl — who were reportedly at the Quincy apartment where Huntsman and Curiel were staying with a friend have been placed in foster care in the Yuba City area, the Plumas County News reported.
The twins appear to be the children of Chris Criswell, a man who once lived with Huntsman and who may have been her husband at one time, according to The Bee.
Authorities said that Huntsman and Curiel moved from Salinas to stay at a Motel 6 in Dunnigan, California, in late November. They eventually traveled to Redding and Shingletown before arriving in Quincy, the newspaper noted.
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