ZEARING, Iowa — Four members of a rural Iowa family are accused of abducting and abusing an 18-year-old relative who had been handcuffed to a bed and beaten so badly that he had brain bleeding and multiple broken ribs, and who was so malnourished that he weighed just 70 pounds when he showed up at a hospital earlier this year, court documents say.
Gary Graham Jr., 44, Danielle Graham, 42, Aaron Williams, 20, and a 16-year-old girl, all from Zearing, Iowa, were charged Monday with first-degree kidnapping and willful injury. They face a preliminary hearing March 29. Court records show that a judge issued an order preventing them from having contact with the alleged victim. The teen girl is charged as an adult, but The Associated Press is not naming her because of her age.
A supervisor for the public defender’s office for Story County said defense attorneys will be assigned, but they haven’t been yet.
The house sits at the end of a residential street in Zearing, a community of 500 people about 50 miles north of Des Moines. Farmland, windmills and dirt roads are nearby. Stickers adorned the front and side doors of the ranch-style home, and Christmas lights still hung along the roof. A dog barked from inside, but no one answered when a reporter knocked on the door.
The allegations stunned the community, Story County Sheriff’s Capt. Nicholas Lennie said Tuesday.
“It’s tragic. It has our whole area in shock, and rightly so,” Lennie said. “It’s not a common thing for one human being to treat another this way, let alone a family member. Sadly, the victim in this case endured months of abuse and being restrained in what most of us consider our safe place — our homes.”
Court documents do not state specifically what relationship the teenager had to the other family members, but an application for a search warrant said Gary Graham Jr. is not the teenager’s biological father. Lennie declined comment on the specific relationships.
The teenager is now out of…
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