Des Moines, Iowa: Natalie Finn, 16, from Iowa died of starvation and lack of proper medical health care, after her parents allegedly kept her captive and tortured her.
According to the Polk County Medical Examiner’s Office, Finn, of West Des Moines, died of emaciation, possibly due to the lack of adequate food and lack of critical care.
Both the parents, Nicole Marie Finn, 42, and Joseph Michael Finn, 45, have been booked under suspicion of her death and have been charged with first-degree kidnapping, child endangerment causing serious injury and neglect of a dependent person. The mother has also been charged with murder in first degree and child endangerment causing death.
Court reports, according to the Daily Mail UK, stated that Nicole Finn killed her daughter ‘intentionally, wilfully, deliberately, with premeditation and malice aforethought.’
Natalie was not the only one. Along with her, the parents also kept two of her siblings, a 14-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, inside the house at Des Moines, in confinement.
The complaints registered against the accused parents also note that ‘substantial’ physical and mental harm was caused due to the lack of proper food, clothing, shelter, healthcare and supervision, which in Natalie’s case caused her death.
The police started investigating the family after an emergency call was made when Natalie was suffering a cardiac arrest. It was found by them that along with the three children listed, the Finns also have two other children. The eldest of the two children is about to turn 23, while the other is 15-years-old.
Natalie was a student of Walnut Creek Campus School, but she had not been enrolled in 2016, WLBZ2 reported.
The children’s well-being came under question five months prior to this incident, when one of the neighbours reported that Natalie would wear the same clothes for several days and would smell due to the lack of hygiene. She would even ask for food from neighbours for herself and her siblings.
