Mother reportedly locked up son with cerebral palsy and no one noticed

When the mother dropped her 9-year-old son off at his fathers Washington home last June, the father was struck by the appearance of the boy, whom he had not seen in about a year. The child appeared to be malnourished. He had bruises and burn marks, and there were bits of duct tape stuck to his wrists and ankles, his father later told social workers.

Taurus Bulluck, 30, rushed his son to Childrens National Medical Center. Doctors determined the boy had 60 injuries, according to D.C. Superior Court documents. They called police.

Police said that over a period of three months, between March and June 2014, the boys mother and her then-boyfriend kept the child locked in a bedroom in their Southeast D.C. apartment as punishment for misbehaving. The mother later told police she was embarrassed because the boy has cerebral palsy, according to court papers. She also said she hated her son and blamed him for a miscarriage, the papers said.

The mother, Betty T. Threatt, 27, is to appear Monday before Judge Rhonda Reid Winston in D.C. Superior Court, and her attorney said in court that she intends to enter a plea deal with prosecutors. Neither side would discuss details of the agreement. Her former boyfriend, Lester O. Jackson, 52, rejected a plea offer and is to go to trial in July.

Court, police and social service documents, along with family interviews, present a harrowing tale of how the boy allegedly ended up locked away without anyone noticing. Bulluck told social workers that Threatt had stopped allowing him to see their son. When Threatt moved to the District from Prince Georges County in February 2014, she failed to enroll him in school, according to two officials with knowledge of the case. The boys grandmother said she eventually became so worried that she called social services.

Threatt, Jackson and their attorneys would not comment publicly, and Bulluck did not return repeated calls and messages left with family members.

Threatt told social workers that she was born to a mother who was addicted to crack cocaine, an allegation her mother declined to address. At age 9, Threatt was sent to an inpatient psychiatric facility for treatment after putting the family cat in a microwave and turning it on, according to social services documents. I got meds for my anger and therapy, she told a court-appointed psychologist recently. She said she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Threatt said that a year after she returned home, she was raped by her mothers boyfriend, an allegation that her mother denies. By the time she was 13, Threatt gave birth to the first of her five children.

I thought I could trust her

The boy was the second-oldest of Threatts children. For the first few years of his life, he was raised by Threatt, his father and his paternal grandmother in Bullucks family home in the 300 block of Decatur Street NW. Threatt, Bulluck would tell a social worker, moved in and out of the house several times during the boys early years, then finally left for good, leaving Bulluck and his mother to raise the boy.

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Mother reportedly locked up son with cerebral palsy and no one noticed