Woman admits confining niece to tiny closet for hours on end

Woman admits confining niece to tiny closet for hours on end


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DUCHESNE — The defendant clutched a well-worn copy of the Holy Bible in her hands and shook almost imperceptibly as she considered the judge's question.

“Is that what happened?” Judge George Harmond had asked.

Ten seconds of silence followed before Rosita Sibello Reed — in a voice so soft it bordered on a whisper — said: “Yes, your honor.”

With those three quiet words Reed, 45, of Roosevelt, admitted Thursday in 8th District Court to repeatedly confining her niece, who is now 9 years old, to a tiny coat closet for extended periods of time between January 2008 and December 2010. She also admitted to threatening her niece and the girl's teenage sister after they first told authorities about the abuse.

Duchesne County Attorney Stephen Foote said the children in Reed's home told investigators the younger girl had been kept in a closet that measured 3 feet wide by 2 feet deep for as long as 34 hours at a time. There was no lock on the closet door, the prosecutor said, so Reed used a 10-inch knife to wedge the door shut.

“I think it was torture, I really do,” Foote said.

Authorities first investigated Reed two years ago when her nieces came forward with allegations of physical abuse, according to Roosevelt Police Lt. Ben Lemmon. That case fell apart though when the girls recanted their claims entirely after Reed threatened to beat them and drown one of them, the lieutenant said.

“They were terrified,” Lemmon said, adding that when the girls again made allegations of abuse against Reed in 2010, “we weren't going to let it go.”

During an interview with police before her arrest in March, Reed said she put her niece in the closet as a means of punishing her for things as minor as taking food from the refrigerator without permission. But other children in the home said Reed had designated the closet as the little girl's bedroom, Lemmon said.

“When she would fall asleep in front of the TV, they would pick her up and carry her to the closet and put her in there,” he said. “She would wake up in the night and they said they could hear her crying. She would cry until she cried herself to sleep.”

The children told police they feared what Reed would do to them if they let the girl out of the closet.

Lemmon, who called the case one of the most difficult he's dealt with in his 37-year career, said the closet had no light inside and was so small the girl had to curl up in the fetal position to sleep. It was filled with urine and feces when investigators executed a search warrant on the house, he said.

Reed was initially charged with nine counts of intentionally inflicting serious physical injury on a child, a second-degree felony, and four counts of child abuse, a class A misdemeanor. As part of an agreement, she pleaded guilty to two of the second-degree felonies and one class A misdemeanor.

She also pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of attempted witness tampering, a class A misdemeanor, and the remaining charges were dismissed.

Defense attorney Bill Morrison said his client accepted the prosecution's offer because she didn't want her nieces to have to endure a trial. Reed assumed guardianship of the girls in 2005 after their mother died, he said, but she was unprepared for the added responsibility of caring for two additional children.

“I think she understands the inappropriateness of her conduct,” Morrison said.

Reed no longer has custody of any of the children who were in her care when when the abuse took place. The girl she confined to the closet is in foster care now and takes medication to help her deal with the emotional toll of the abuse she endured, authorities say. Her teen sister is also in state custody, but is confined to a secure facility due to ongoing problems connected to the abuse, Foote said.

Reed is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 1. Foote said he will seek prison time.

Email:geoff@ubstandard.com

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Geoff Liesik for the Deseret News

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