Three children gave investigators accounts of life in an Evans, West Virginia, home that matched one another.
The scars on their bodies matched too. Jackson County Sheriff Ross H. Mellinger says that combination led his office to charge the couple who were raising them.
Erica Lynn Sayre, 45, and Clifford Gale Sayre, 46, now face child abuse and neglect charges. The sheriff’s office says the children endured “prolonged physical and emotional abuse” over a span of years.
Mellinger said the children described a routine of violence inside the house. Adults there hit them and strangled them, he said, and kept food and water from them.
The children also told investigators that the household denied them access to the bathroom.
They described dirty cat litter dumped into their beds and dog feces smeared on their personal belongings, the sheriff said.
According to Mellinger, the couple threatened the children into silence. The sheriff said the children heard they would be killed if they reported what happened.
Officials say Erica Sayre inflicted most of the physical harm.
She struck the children with household objects, officials said, and left them with “excessive bleeding injuries.” Her husband stood nearby and watched, according to the same officials.
Mellinger shared one child’s description of the household, saying the child told investigators that “mom hits us and Gale lets her.”
Conflicts brought their own punishment, the children said. After a disagreement with Erica Sayre, a child had to run barefoot on a gravel driveway.
One child told investigators about a separate episode. She said Clifford Sayre pinned her hands while Erica Sayre cut off her hair with a razor blade. The attack left visible injuries on the child.
The children also told investigators that the couple taunted them about the deaths of their biological parents.
Physical evidence supported those statements, Mellinger said. Scars across the children’s bodies fit what they described, and each child’s account backed up the others. Authorities removed all three children from the home.
Two of the children spoke directly about what they wanted next. One, visibly emotional, told investigators, “I can’t go back to that home.” Another told them she “just wants a normal life,” the sheriff said.
Prosecutors charged Erica Sayre with three counts of child abuse resulting in bodily injury. They also charged her with three counts of child neglect creating risk of injury.
Clifford Sayre faces three counts of child neglect resulting in bodily injury and three counts of child neglect creating risk of injury.
Mellinger used the case to urge the public to speak up.
“The outlined findings of the investigation are deeply troubling and underscore the importance of reporting suspected child abuse, as the children were all living in a real-life ‘House of Horrors’ with the adults in their lives that should have otherwise been protecting them from such occurrences and conditions, not creating them,” he said.
Key background remains unreported. Authorities have not said when or how the children’s biological parents died. They have also not said whether the parents were related to the Sayres.
The charges against both defendants remain allegations.
