Photo: North Las Vegas Police Department
Authorities in North Las Vegas, Nevada, arrested three people accused of locking an 18-year-old woman in a bedroom for nearly a year.
Police were called to the home after receiving a report that somebody was using a ladder to try to climb inside. When officers arrived, they found the teenager standing in her bedroom window.
She told the police that she had been locked in the room for about a year and tied her clothes together to make a rope so she could escape.
The teen, who turned 18 last month, said that she wanted to get some water from her neighbor's hose and had asked them for food because she hadn't eaten in over a day.
The officers spoke to her mother, Addy Gonzales, on the phone, who told them she didn't want them to enter her house until she got back.
When the officers did enter the home, they found the girl living in squalor. The room contained a bed frame and box spring with a sheet over it. There was also a black bucket that was "half full of what appeared to be urine and fecal matter."
Gonzales was taken into custody, as was the girl's grandmother, Maria Pasarin, and another adult in the home, Daniel Omezcua. They are facing charges of false imprisonment and child abuse and were released on their own recognizance until their next court hearing.
Officials said that the Department of Child Protective Services received eight complaints about the family, but investigators said "there was not enough cooperation or evidence to pursue" the allegations of abuse.