Torture at Home

Mom and Dad: Lynn and Clint Engstrom
(Photos/Oshkosh PD)

The Dems and the lib media have kept the topic of torture alive for years now.

Since Abu Ghraib, it's been one of their favorite issues.

Yes, they love to talk torture.

They condemn the Bush administration for its interrogation policies, for the methods they use to get information from our enemies. They're so concerned about keeping terrorists and thugs comfortable. They even want to grant them the rights of U.S. citizens.

Dick Durbin and Russ Feingold champion the cause of keeping our enemies happy.

By the way, has Michael Isikoff written about any Qurans and toilets lately?

You want a story of real torture?


Torture chamber
(Photo/Mark Hoffman)

Here's a case of abuse that went on for two years in Oshkosh, Wisconsin:

Icicle lights line the gutters of Clint and Lynn Engstrom's home on Minnesota St. The newly remodeled house is among the nicest on the block, and a silver SUV is parked out back. Beside the front door hangs a shiny wooden sign; six intertwined hearts contain the names of the Engstroms and four children who lived there as a blended family.

But authorities say one of the children - Clint Engstrom's 13-year-old daughter from a previous relationship - wasn't treated like the others. Instead, she was kept in near-solitary confinement in a bare attic bedroom for two years, police say, behind a deadbolted door and a video camera, let out only for timed bathroom breaks, meager meals and chores.

..."Is this something like a Cinderella syndrome?" Oshkosh police Sgt. Steve Sagmeister said. "Even in a storybook, I don't think Cinderella was even treated like this. (This is) far worse than imaginable. I can't even fathom what the parents were even thinking."

This is heartbreaking.

How could the parents treat the child this way?

It's incomprehensible.

Family pets receive better treatment than this little girl did.

The parents were charged Tuesday in Winnebago County with causing mental harm to a child, a felony punishable by up to 12 1/2 years in prison and a $25,000 fine. Clint M. Engstrom, 32, and Lynn M. Engstrom, 35, are being held in lieu of $25,000 cash bail at the Winnebago County Jail, a place Sagmeister noted provides them with more than they are accused of providing the 13-year-old girl: hot meals and a clean bed.

The criminal complaint outlines a horrible life for the girl, who was allowed out of her small room for only a couple hours a day for one-minute bathroom breaks and chores that included taking out the trash and cleaning up after the family's three St. Bernards.

The other three children, Lynn Engstrom's two sons, ages 12 and 9, and 8-year-old daughter, were treated differently, authorities say, and had nice toys, televisions and computers.

Lynn Engstrom definitely deserves a nomination for wicked stepmother of the year.

If she did have some sort of problem with her stepdaughter, I don't see how the father could have allowed his child to be treated so differently from the other children living in the household.

They kept a child in the attic!

The 13-year-old is now living with her grandmother while the other children stay with other family members, Sagmeister said. The suspected abuse came to light Friday, the girl's birthday, when the Engstroms took her to St. Elizabeth's Hospital because she was hearing voices.

Police were called to the hospital and listened in shock as the girl, who had begun to pull large chunks of hair out of her head and pick at her skin, explained what her life had been like for about two years.

It's weird that the Engstroms would take her to the hospital. They had to know that she would tell the staff about her home life.

A question: Where was the grandmother the past two years?

Lynn Engstrom, who has worked for a day care and a bowling alley, told police she and her husband kept up the extreme punishment because the girl's psychiatrist told her to do so. She told police the couple "were always questioning what they were doing" but that the doctor "told them not give in," according to the criminal complaint.

The Engstroms told police the girl had been grounded for about two years and said they planned to end the punishment as soon as she behaved properly for two straight days, according to the criminal complaint. Court records did not indicate what behavior prompted the punishment or what behavior was required to end the grounding.

Is it possible that the Engstroms really believed that they hadn't done anything wrong?

If it's true that a psychiatrist told them to treat the child this way, then that doctor better have a damn good malpractice insurance policy.

According to the criminal complaint, the girl got a granola bar for breakfast and was not allowed to eat with the family. Sagmeister said that when the rest of the family ate a hot meal, she was given only a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

In the girl's room, police found only a urine-stained mattress, pillow, blanket, empty chest of drawers and a small space heater, which was controlled from outside the room. A towel was placed over the window. There was a naked light bulb in the ceiling socket, but Sagmeister said the string on the pull switch was too short for the girl to work it.

Compare the quality of this little girl's life to the sort of conditions provided by the U.S. for the bad guys being held at Guantanamo.

The detainees live like kings compared to her.

Keep in mind that this child's hell went on for TWO YEARS.

Where's Russ Feingold or Amnesty International or the Red Cross to put out press releases about this innocent child being stripped of her civil rights and her dignity?

Clint Engstrom told police that, at a psychiatrist's suggestion, he installed an alarm on the girl's door after she had been sneaking out to eat the other children's candy and watch TV.

I just can't believe that a psychiatrist would be such a sadist and so deranged, and that the parents would be so heartless to follow such advice.

When asked why she was singled out for such treatment, the girl told detectives she thought she was grounded for some sort of misbehavior, said Sagmeister, though what she had done was unclear to authorities. He said the girl asked what she had done wrong, and a detective tried to assure her that the punishment was not her fault.

Detectives described the girl as intelligent and strong despite her ordeal. She told police that over the past month or so she tried to cry but couldn't produce tears.

I honestly don't know how she survived.

The girl was enrolled in Oshkosh public schools until August 2002, when she was transferred to Grace Lutheran School in Oshkosh, said John Sprangers, human resources director for the Oshkosh Area School District, which has about 10,300 students. School records indicate the girl was re-enrolled on Dec. 11 and is still considered a student at South Park Middle School.

STILL CONSIDERED A STUDENT?

HOW???

She was "grounded" for TWO YEARS! She wasn't allowed to attend school.

What sort of incompetents are running the Oshkosh Area School District?

They have a record of the girl being enrolled. What else? Do they have her grades? Her attendance records?

Talk about letting a child slip through the cracks!

...Court records show that the girl's mother was never married to Clint Engstrom. She has since married and had four more children, according to records. The mother, who was 17 when the girl was born, could not be reached Wednesday.

I wonder what the biological mother's involvement with the girl was.

How long did she care for her daughter after she was born, if ever?

Is she troubled by the revelations?

Does she feel anything for her child?

This story is so horrible from so many different angles -- the parents, the psychiatrist, the school.

And what about the three children? Didn't they mention to their friends that they had a stepsister living in the attic, being treated like a prisoner?

And what about other relatives or the girl's friends?

Didn't anyone notice that, in effect, she was missing?

It took two years and a trip to the hospital before anyone was tipped off.

I wonder if the girl saw a doctor at any other time during her captivity.

Unbelievable.

Sadly, stories of abusive parents and neglected, tortured children aren't uncommon.

What's strange about this one is the juxtapositioning of the seemingly happy family life that the Engstroms enjoyed with the tortured girl's existence in the attic.

How could they do that to her?

What incredibly poor judgment!

I'm sure it will be said that the parents are somehow victims as well. They struggled economically. They were under stress. There were no government-sponsored programs to teach them proper parenting skills. Oshkosh is a city in crisis. Whatever.

Some people will cut them some slack and excuse the way they treated their daughter, finding fault somewhere or with someone else.

Not me.