A mentally disabled Arizona girl died Wednesday, a day after officers found her living in a filthy, makeshift cage.
Virginia Lujan, 55, and her 33-year-old daughter Jami Hodges, were arrested and charged after the death of the 13-year-old girl who was found not breathing, covered in sores inside the feces-filled cage.
“The best way to describe it, it was a bunk bed, but the lower bed of that bunk was not there. And the bunk bed around the bottom was surrounded by baby cages and makeshift bars,” Tempe Police Spokesperson Jessica Ells said.
The victim suffered from cognitive issues and had the mental capacity of a toddler. Lujan, the girl’s grandmother, cared for her and four other children and kept the teen in the cage to keep control of her.
Hodges, the victim’s mother, only temporarily lived at the home and did not see her daughter regularly.
The grandmother admitted that the victim fell down the stairs last weekend and was not taken to a doctor after the incident.
Both women were arrested on child abuse charges but Hodges was released pending the outcome of the investigation.
