A routine welfare check by the Red Wing Police Department about suspected child abuse ended with the parents being charged with several felonies and children left with trauma from those that were supposed to love them the most.
“I’ve never seen one like this before where the children are literally housed in cages and then just let out for daily interactions,” Assistant Red Wing Police Chief Nick Sather said. “This was a first and hopefully the last.”
The parents, Benjamin Taylor Cotton, 41, and Christina Ann Cotton, 38, are both facing two counts of child torture, seven counts of neglect and four counts of malicious punishment of a child, all felonies. The couple is also facing an additional three gross misdemeanor charges of malicious punishment of a child.
The children were immediately removed from the home as soon as the report of concern was investigated, according to a statement from the Goodhue County Attorney’s Office. The children “are and have been in a safe place” since Aug. 19, 2022, the statement said.
“Goodhue County filed a CHIPS (Child in Need of Protection or Services) court case immediately and the parents have been compliant. The criminal charges were brought when the investigation was completed, including the recent receipt of expert opinions about Intrafamilial Child Torture which support the charges,” according to the statement from the Goodhue County Attorney’s Office.
According to data from the Minnesota Department of Human Services in 2021, about 5,400 children were found to be abused or neglected within their family or by a caregiver. This was a 7% increase from 2020.
A warrant was issued for the couple’s arrest
Thursday, June 15, 2023, and they were booked into the Goodhue County Jail Saturday, June 17, 2023. A judge set their bail at $50,000 and the pair are no longer listed as in custody in the jail.
Their next court date is scheduled for July 12, 2023.
From cages to beatings, court documents outline troubling conditions for the youths with government services ultimately deciding that the parents should not have any contact with their children. The couple routinely held their young children in locked cages for 13 to 14 hours a day, beat them with a belt and withheld food and access to a bathroom.
The Goodhue County Health and Human Services began investigating the couple last year following a report that they were keeping a 5-year-old locked up in a wooden “cage” and subjecting the child to extreme forms of punishment, along with three other children in the home, ages 9, 7 and 2. The report stated the mother suffered from mental health issues.
A social worker and Sather, then an investigator with the department, found three of the children locked in various homemade cages during an Aug. 18, 2022, inspection of the couple’s Red Wing home.
The mother, Christina Cotton, told the investigators the children were locked up for their own safety and were asleep.
“We walked into the house and everything was normal,” Sather said. “We had no expectation of anything coming into this.”
But then the social worker walked into the boy’s room. “She was just kind of in shock and didn’t know what to say,” Sather said.
When the social worker and Sather entered the boy’s room, the children extended their arms between slats attached to a small bunk bed with their faces pressed between them. The bunk bed had been fashioned into a cage with 4 wooden boards attached to the bed with a 2- to 4-inch gap between the boards. The children waved and asked who the newcomers were.
Next to the bunk bed, investigators found a then 2-year-old boy inside a playpen with a “dog gate” tied to the top, making it impossible for the child to get out.
“It was so quick and unexpected,” Sather said. “It just hits you and you just stand there for a second and try to figure it out. ‘OK, what do I do now and what did I get into here?'”
Sather and the social worker immediately began work to get the children out.
The door to the makeshift prison had a sliding metal lock that was difficult for the social worker to slide open. The height of the cage did not allow either child to fully stand up.
Investigators also found two bowls in the room, which the children referred to as a “puke bowl.”
It was later discovered that the children were not allowed to go to the bathroom once they were put to bed in the cages, which accounts for the smell of urine that permeated their room.
After Sather told the mother that it was not acceptable to lock her children up, she said she did it to prevent them from dying. She added the children were only locked up at night and they were still in their cages because she had slept in. The children had been kept in their cages for 13 hours that day.
The 9-year-old was found in the home’s basement and was not caged or confined.
Sather determined that the children were at imminent risk and they were placed on a 72-hold. A second social worker was called in to help the children pack.
While the mother was changing the 2-year-old’s soiled diaper to prepare for their departure, a social worker noticed that she had torn a large piece of duct tape in half and had wrapped it around the top of the new diaper.
She said she does this often to keep the diaper on. When she was told that the duct tape was not necessary, she proceeded to wrap duct tape around the diaper twice.
“It takes a toll on you,” Sather said, referencing some of the more horrible things law enforcement sees. “It makes you wonder how somebody can do that to somebody else.”
The department has an officer wellness program that can help officers with any stress or other issues that comes with working the job, Sather said.
“When I first started, it wasn’t really talked about,” he said, later adding that it’s no longer questioned when an officer needs some time off to go deal with their mental health.
Once investigators removed the four children from their Red Wing home, they were brought to the Mayo Clinic Red Wing Emergency room for a wellness check.
While en route, the eldest child told the other children not to speak about the abuse to the social workers, something her mother had told her to say.
A physical examination of the children found bruising along their backsides. The youngest did not have any bruising that was noted but his diaper was on so tight that he had indentations and a rash on his stomach.
During a forensic interview, something all investigators with the RWPD are trained in, the children described chores they had to perform, like cleaning the carpet for dog hair by scrapping their fingers along the carpet.
If the children did not do their chores, one of them told investigators, they were taught “lessons.” The child refused to talk in further detail about the punishments.
Two of the children told investigators that they were routinely beaten with a belt it they didn’t do their chores.
One of the children stated that dad hits “hard” but that his mom “hits him really, really hard.”
It was also determined that their parents had routinely held their young children in locked cages for 13 to 14 hours a day, withheld food and access to a bathroom for several years.
When it comes to abuse cases, the department works closely with caseworkers and the county attorney’s office during forensic interviews in order to streamline the process of getting survivors help and possibly pressing charges.
The children were placed in a family member’s home following their removal and the county filed a petition for their protection Aug. 23, 2022.
A judge granted that petition and the children were given access to mental health services. The parents were also given parenting evaluations but the county would later determine they were unfit to have contact with their children.
A licensed psychologist determined that this abuse goes well beyond what is typically viewed as physical and emotional abuse and could fit into a category of abuse called “intrafamilial child torture.”
The Cottons both admitted to violating Minnesota statute by withholding food, clothing, shelter, education or other required care from their children, during an Oct. 3, 2022, court hearing.
According to a December 2022 update from the court-appointed guardian, following their removal from the home, the children appeared to be improving with the two eldest once again regularly attending school. They missed 27 days of school last year.
The two youngest are affectionate, “They like to have hugs and be reassured they are loved and cared for,” according to the report.
The county ultimately decided that contact between the children and their parents would not be a safe environment and has recommended they live with a foster family the children have been spending weekends with.
“The placement option is recommended to be non-biological due to the severe nature of the abuse and observed interactions through the placement evaluation,” a June 14, 2023, update from a Goodhue County social worker states.
The social worker also reported an interaction between Christina and one of the children following a court hearing. During the short reunion, Christina broke down and cried, something a social worker had asked her not to do so that the children were not further traumatized.
Christina has also threatened suicide in front of at least one of the children.
Children who have been abused may show several determinant behaviors,
according to the Mayo Clinic
. Continued contact between an abuser and those they abuse may lengthen the time it takes for survivors to heal.
While there has been improvement, the children are still showing some concerning symptoms related to their abuse, according to the county caseworker. The Post Bulletin is not outlining the specific symptoms due to the young age of the children.
“Individual and family therapy work will continue to be necessary to learn new skills and interact positively with one another,” the report states.
Sather said he hopes the kids go to a place that takes care of them.
“(The abuse) was normalized for them,” Sather said. “This is going to be a traumatic experience for the rest of their lives. Once they figure out that this is not normal, it’s gonna take a really long time for them to recover.”