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DALLAS (AP) — A teenage girl who says she was raped and impregnated by a relative three years ago also was beaten by four other family members to induce an abortion, Dallas police said Wednesday.
Four relatives were arrested Tuesday on charges of engaging in organized criminal activity and a fifth was arrested on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child, police said.
Deputy Chief Gil Garza said more charges are possible as the investigation continues.
"There is still a lot of work to do," he said.
The teenager, now 16, is in the custody of Texas Child Protective Services. CPS spokeswoman Marissa Gonzales said six other children at the home — a 15-year-old brother, 14-year-old sister and four children belonging to a beating suspect — were taken into custody Tuesday. The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual assault and in order to protect the victim's identity, has also not identified the family members charged.
According to an affidavit, the girl, who was 14 at the time of the alleged assault in August 2012, didn't come forward until May 22, when another woman who said she was a witness to part of the assault took her to a police station.
The affidavit says family members discovered the girl was pregnant sometime between the months of January and March 2013. At about eight months pregnant, she was given multiple doses of birth control pills, emergency conception pills and cinnamon tablets by one of the suspects in an attempt to abort the baby. The girl told police that because that didn't work, the suspects beat her for six hours and she ended up giving birth to a stillborn child.
The woman who helped file the police report told authorities the girl was crying in extreme pain during the beating. The affidavit says one of the suspects told the girl to "shut up" and cry into a pillow during the assault.
The affidavit says the relatives tried to burn the baby's body in a charcoal grill, but the remains were not destroyed. Two days later, one of the beating suspects paid another $25 to "take care of the rest of it," documents say, and the remains were disposed of in a plastic bag at an unknown location.
Police are searching for the remains.
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