Florida Couple Arrested For Confining Adopted 13-Year-Old In Garage For 5 Years

A Florida couple was arrested for physically abusing and forcing their 13-year-old adopted child to stay in a small structure in their garage for five years.

Tracy Ferriter and her husband Timothy, both aged 46, were charged with aggravated child abuse.

Detectives were called to a residence in the 200 block of Crane Point North in the Egret Landing community on Jan. 30 regarding a follow-up investigation about a 13-year-old missing runaway. It is unclear who made the missing report or how long the child had been missing, CBS12 reported.

Tracy, the 13-yer-old’s adoptive mother, let one of the detectives enter the house. Once inside, the detective noticed an 8-foot by 8-foot structure in the garage. The woman told the detective that it was a small office. During the investigation, the officer also noticed that the structure had a deadbolt and a doorknob. It locked only from the outside. The structure also had a light switch on the exterior. Inside the structure, detectives found a camera, a mattress and a bucket, the report said.

The next day, detectives were able to find the runaway teen at school. On interviewing the minor, detectives determined that Tracy and Timothy Ferriter abused and forced the teen to live in the garage since 2017. He was allowed to attend school but was confined to the structure for the rest of the day. The couple delivered the child his meals and left the bucket for bathroom use, the outlet reported.

Tracy and Timothy Ferriter were booked into the Palm Beach County jail. At the time of the arrest, three other children were also living in the house. They were released into the custody of child protective service, police said.

The couple's neighbor, Aric Preisendorf, said that the duo had been living in the area since 2007 and had mostly kept to themselves.

"It's a three-car garage. On the single-car garage, there was where a room was built in there but I never went in the house or in the garage. You could see it from the outside," Preisendorf said to WPTV.

The case is being investigated.