The youngest among three sisters who were allegedly locked up by their stepfather and mother inside their home in Tucson testified before the court that Fernando Richter once beat her because of not reading the dictionary properly.
The defense attorneys, however, questioned the veracity of the girl's statement. They asserted that she provided different facts to investigators when she escaped.
However, the girl said she was attempting to defend Richter at that time as she assumed her stepfather was listening to the interview. She said she was frightened.
The girl said that when she and her sister escaped from their home in 2013, she did not think Richter was going to kill them. She also went to say that Fernando held a knife at the time they fled, albeit she reiterated she did not think he was going to kill them. However, the girl confessed that their lives were endangered by Richter in the past and that he would whip them for not following rules. The girl was 12 years old when she and her sister escaped from their home.
Meanwhile, the oldest of the three siblings said she was confined to a bed in her room for a few months, until her two younger sisters fled to call for help from the authorities. She also revealed she was not allowed to brush her teeth or take a shower when she was imprisoned. The girl said Fernando would beat all of them with sticks, wires or metal tools if they didn't follow their parents' rules.
Additionally, it was exposed during the proceeding that their parents watched the younger girls in their room with video cams and they weren't allowed to use a restroom, forcing them to defecate and pee within their closets. The girl cried as she recalled the time she was jailed in her own room.
"I would write music and I would just think and sing," she said. "I was crazy. I was by myself, nobody would talk to me. I would just talk to myself and that's all I would do."
She was only 17 years old when their stepfather and mother, Sophia Richter, were charged with kidnapping, child abuse and domestic violence. Presently, the girl is 19 years old and already finished high school, topping her class.
