Strangers move in, make 79-year-old ‘a prisoner in his own home,’ Texas officials say

By Mitchell Willetts

Three people are accused of moving into a 79-year-old man’s Tomball, Texas, home and taking control of his finances, and beating him for money, according to officials. Screengrab from video by KHOU.

A 79-year-old Texas man was made “a prisoner in his own home” for months after a trio of strangers moved in, according to investigators. 

The man had gone to Louisiana for a funeral, and when he returned to his home in Tomball, Texas, in December, it was immediately clear that something wasn’t right, according to a criminal complaint filed June 2 in Harris County. 

His truck was missing from the driveway, and three “brand new” vehicles had taken its place, documents read. They had been financed in his name and without his knowledge, the complaint says. 

He stuck his key in the front door but it wouldn’t open because the locks had been changed. 

Inside were three people, two women and a man, the complaint says.

The homeowner, a disabled veteran, had tried to help one of the suspects, he told TV station KHOU. Now he was paying for his kindness. 

“I wished a thousand times I never helped them, but I did,” he said. 

For several months, the trio controlled his home and his finances, documents say. When they needed money, or cash for gas, they would beat him with a plastic rod until he gave it to them, the complaint says. 

His life continued like this until mid-February, when the man took one of the suspects to get an oil change, documents said. A witness noticed bruises all over his arms and asked where they came from, and the man wouldn’t answer.

Worried, the witness later went to his home and took him to a doctor, where he opened up about what was being done to him, investigators said. She filed for an eviction on his behalf and police cleared the trio out of the home. 

They stole a number of appliances during their stay at the house, the witness and friend, Patti Hallas, told KHOU. 

“They took the TVs, they took the wall oven, they took the refrigerator, they took everything,” she said.

Two of the suspects, women ages 43 and 39, are facing charges of aggravated robbery, court documents show. 

Their male accomplice is charged with injury to the elderly, KHOU reported. 

Tomball is roughly 35 miles northwest of downtown Houston.

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Strangers move in, make 79-year-old ‘a prisoner in his own home,’ Texas officials say

Couple held 70-year-old woman in a dog kennel and stole her disability money, Texas cops say

Leonnia Darlene Castillo and Tommy Lee Anderson

The string of alleged abuse reads like a torture scene in a prisoner-of-war movie.

Police in the tiny East Texas town of Malakoff, about 78 miles southeast of Dallas, say that one couple there put a 70-year-old woman through all of it, over the course of eight months.

The victim, who is a relative of 47-year-old Leonnia Darlene Anderson Castillo, had been living with her and Tommy Anderson, 49, since January, according to an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by McClatchy.

Over the course of the last eight months, the woman told police, Anderson and Castillo periodically locked her inside a dog kennel, threw glass bottles at her and stripped her down to her underwear before forcing her walk on the glass shards, according to the affidavit. The allegations were first reported by KLTV. 

She said that Anderson “coerced” her into buying the dog kennel, then forced her to stay outside in the heat until she vomited. When she did, the affidavit states, her punishment was getting locked inside.

While she was trapped inside the kennel, the couple didn’t buy her any food, she said. Instead, according to the affidavit, the victim accused the couple of keeping her debit card from her, and using it to withdraw money from her bank account when her disability payments came in.

Over the course of the eight months she lived with the couple, the woman also accused Castillo of trying to drown her in a bathtub in Anderson’s home.

When other family members tried to intervene and come get the woman from the house on Wesley Street, “Castillo wouldn’t let it happen,” the affidavit states.

Last week, though, two family members from the Dallas area succeeded, according to the affidavit. They took the victim to Mesquite to live with other family on Wednesday, it states.

Police interviewed the victim the same day, where police officers noted “a bruised left eye, and apparent hand print on her left arm, numerous red circular sores on her back and cuts on her feet,” according to the affidavit.

Arrest warrants for Castillo and Anderson were issued on Friday, and the couple was booked into jail on Saturday. Castillo has been charged with injury to the elderly, with a $50,000 bond, while Anderson is charged with unlawful restraint, with a $15,000 bond, according to jail records.

Anderson bonded out of jail on Monday, and Castillo was bonded out Tuesday, according to Jennifer Carmon, clerk for the Henderson County Justice of the Peace, Precinct 5. Malakoff Police Chief Floyd Thomas would not comment on the case any further Tuesday, telling McClatchy that the investigation was still ongoing.

 more here: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article217470300.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article217470300.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article217470300.html#storylink=cpy

 Full Article & Source:
Couple held 70-year-old woman in a dog kennel and stole her disability money, Texas cops say