They Said She Was Home-Schooled. She Said She Was Locked in a Dog Crate.
It was dark out when the barefoot teenage girl barreled through the door of Susan Lacey's cottage in Blackwood, N.J., and released a torrent of words.
She said she had been locked in a dog crate for a year and handcuffed to a toilet and not allowed to eat and didn't go to school but she did get to take the dogs outside and her stepfather sometimes touched her but she got to listen to music and ate from a bucket but her little sister didn't have to and she was really, truly Freddie Mercury, from Queen. She giggled.
Ms. Lacey sat her down on the couch and told her to breathe.
It took a moment for Ms. Lacey to recognize her: It was her neighbor's daughter, and though the girl lived just feet away, she was rarely seen outdoors, and had been home-schooled for the past seven years. She was 18 years old, her hair was shaved close and uneven, and she smelled foul.
Ms. Lacey heated up a corn dog for her as the words kept coming. The girl's jumbled mix of horrors and non sequiturs about pop music made Ms. Lacey and her adult son, who was visiting, wonder if what she was saying was true.
Then the teenager raised her hand toward her mouth to take a bite of the corn dog. There were marks on her wrists.
Had she tried to harm herself? Ms. Lacey asked. No, the girl replied. For the year she spent locked in the crate, she said, she had often had her hands cuffed behind her back. The cuffs had left scars.
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