Death penalty demanded

US parents starved twelve-year-old daughter to death

Rendell H. and Cindy W. are in custody awaiting trial.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/APA/Getty Images via AFP/GETTY IMAGES/Hannah Beier, Chester County Prison)

Parents tortured their twelve-year-old daughter and gave her nothing to eat. The child weighed only 23 kilograms and was left to die. 

Twelve-year-old Malinda H. experienced hell on earth instead of a loving childhood home in Philadelphia. The investigating public prosecutor Christopher de Barrena-Sarobe said on local TV station WGAL that Malinda was "systematically" physically abused in a cruel manner. She was taken to hospital, weighed only 23 kilograms, had six broken bones and open wounds all over her body. The doctors were unable to save her and the girl died.

According to the indictment, police officers found videos on the cell phones of her father and stepmother showing how the girl was handcuffed to furniture and locked in the cellar.

Malinda H. was only twelve years old.(Bild: Krone KREATIV)

Failure of the authorities after leaving school
Text messages between the 52-year-old and his 45-year-old wife also show the "offenses" for which Malinda was punished. First, the girl was repeatedly beaten, then she had to go hungry and was forced to do sports exercises for hours in her weakened state. Rendell H. had taken his daughter out of public school in December 2023 and enrolled her in online lessons instead - because teachers had alerted child welfare services due to the child's alarming physical condition.

However, the authorities did not take action, even though a closer look should have set off alarm bells: The stepmother, Cindy W., had already served time in prison for serious child abuse between 2009 and 2014.

Prosecutor: "No child should be tortured like that"
Barrena-Sarobe portrays the couple as "evil personified" and calls for the death penalty: "No child should ever have to go through the kind of torture that Malinda had to endure for months on end." Meanwhile, H. and W. are in custody awaiting trial without the possibility of bail.