MARGATE, Fla. – Authorities arrested a former worker at a child abuse prevention organization in connection with an investigation into an alleged house of torture in Margate where multiple family members are accused of brutalizing, caging and starving a 15-year-old girl for years.
Treaunshae Gibbons, described in open court Thursday as a “blood relative” of the girl, was charged with child neglect with great bodily harm and failure to report child abuse within her household.
According to Gibbons’ arrest warrant, which was heavily redacted, she is the victim’s cousin and resided at the home from Nov. 1, 2015 to Nov. 19, 2019. She now lives in Coral Springs, according to court records.
The warrant states that Gibbons “witnessed and/or otherwise knew of the abuse and neglect the child victim was experiencing and failed to make a reasonable effort” to protect the victim.
The 29-year-old now becomes the fifth member of the family to be arrested and the fourth directly tied to the abuse allegations.
Gibbons was employed as a family support counselor by Kids in Distress, a Wilton Manors-based nonprofit “dedicated to preventing child abuse, preserving families, and treating children who have been abused and neglected,” the organization confirmed Thursday.
CEO Mark Dhooge told Local 10 News in a statement that the case had nothing to do with Gibbons’ employment. He said Kids in Distress fired her in November, “immediately after learning she was related to the family.”
Previous arrests
Already facing charges in the case are the 15-year-old’s aunt and uncle, Latricia Crawley and Benjamin Lockett, who were arrested in late October, as well as her sister, Shankyria Clayton, who was arrested a little more than a week later.
Authorities then arrested a fourth member of the household, Horace Crawley, after accusing him of failing to re-register as a sex offender.
The charges against the 74-year-old appear to be unrelated to the torture case, though Margate police did not explicitly rule out Crawley as an additional suspect in a statement to Local 10 News following his arrest, with a lieutenant saying investigators were “going through the course of our investigation to determine how many more, if any, people will be charged with abuse and neglect of our victim.”
Horace Crawley remained behind bars, as of Thursday.
Heinous allegations
The allegations previously made against the family members, specifically Crawley and Lockett — the girl’s legal guardians — involved multiple forms of severe torture and starvation over the course of a decade.
Police said they were made aware of what was going on at the Northwest 79th Terrace home after the 15-year-old told her online instructor that she needed help and asked for police to be sent to her home.
Officers arrived at the house and discovered that Lockett had punched the victim in the head because he thought she had eaten candy, causing her head to slam into the corner of a desk, according to an arrest report.
The victim suffered a cut to the left side of her head, which was bleeding and had visible swelling, the report stated. Police said she showed multiple signs of malnutrition and starvation.
Police said the girl explained that Lockett, 43, and Crawley, 46, have had custody of her since 2014 and have tortured her in various ways over the years and also caged her in two different closets, forcing her to urinate and defecate in a bucket.
Alleged abuse listed in the arrest report included:
- 2019: 11 years of age, (Lockett) kicked her in the chin, resulting in a noticeable permanent scar, observed by your affiant.
- 2021: 13 years of age, (Crawley) oiled the knees of the victim and forced the victim to kneel on rice for several hours at a time, for several days in a row, resulting in permanent disfigurement to the victim’s knees in the form of scar tissue, observed by this affiant.
- 2021: 13 years of age, (Crawley) tied the victim to a fixed object and struck her toes with a hammer. According to the victim, this resulted in severe pain and bleeding.
- 2022: 14 years of age, (Crawley and Lockett) tied and bound the victim to different objects on multiple occasions with a nylon rope, resulting in permanent disfigurement to the victim’s skin on her shoulders, wrists and areas of her stomach in the form of scarring and hyperpigmentation, observed by your affiant.
- 2022: 14 years of age, (Crawley) threw a pot of boiling water at the victim causing permanent disfigurement in the form of scarring to the victim’s stomach, observed by your affiant.
According to the report, officers went to the victim’s home and found two closets that had locking mechanisms. Droplets of blood were also seen on the floor inside one of the closets where the victim said she ran to after being punched by Lockett, however the blood had been cleaned up by the time officers returned later in the day, police said.
The victim told officers that she would sometimes be tied up with zip ties inside the closets and was forced to sleep there and said Crawley “would often pour cold water on (her) while she slept, just to see her wake up,” the report stated.
According to the report, the victim, who was placed in the custody of the Florida Department of Children and Families, said that one form of punishment by Crawley included having her eyes taped shut while her head was dunked into water.
Clayton, 20, is accused of witnessing the abuse against her sister and failing to report it. Authorities also accused her of joining Crawley and Lockett in caging and starving the teenager.
Cases move through courts
Crawley and Lockett are facing multiple counts each of child abuse causing great bodily harm, as well as one count each of child neglect causing great bodily harm. Both were arraigned in Broward County court on Tuesday.
Clayton was charged with aggravated child abuse, child neglect causing great bodily harm and failing to report abuse. Her next appearance in court is scheduled for Jan. 2.
On Thursday, a Broward judge ordered Gibbons have no contact with the co-defendants or children, with the exception of her own, set her bond at $80,000 and required she wear a GPS monitor if she gets out of jail.