This almost sounds like the plot to the latest ISIS video…. But no it’s just another loving mother. I hope this child finds peace in life and never sees this family again.
HYDE PARK — Residents of Newport Condominiums said on Wednesday they were rattled after a woman in the building was arrested, accused of locking her 7-year-old son in a closet and severely beating him over a two-year period.
Caroline Woods, 24, was in court Tuesday, charged with beating her 7-year-old with an electrical cord, pole and baseball beat. A court-appointed doctor who examined the boy after he was found running next to Lake Shore Drive in a dirty diaper said that the boy had the most injuries he had every seen on one person.
Caroline Woods was arrested Sunday, accused of abusing her son. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Sam Cholke, inset provided by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office
Police said Woods’ boyfriend, who prosecutors claim also participated in the abuse, has not been arrested, and detectives believe he moved to California several weeks ago.
Residents of the two condominium towers at 4800 S. Chicago Beach Drive said they were horrified after finding out the details of Woods’ arrest on Sunday.
“I can’t believe that happened right here,” said Betty Riley, who has lived in the building since 1993 and lives two floors down from Woods and her boyfriend.
She said the building allows residents to tune in to the building’s security cameras on their televisions and she said she watched Woods being led out of the building with her 2-year-old daughter by police on Sunday.
“That poor child, he’ll never be right,” Riley said of the 7-year-old.
Woods’ neighbors on the same floor said there was no indication that there was child abuse happening in the condo Woods and her boyfriend were renting.
“I heard a baby cry, that was all. I never saw the boy at all,” said one neighbor, who did not want to be identified because the boyfriend has not been arrested.
Other neighbors said they had no idea there was a 7-year-old in the apartment at all because they never saw or heard him, though they did see Woods with her daughter in a stroller several times.
The boy told police he was never allowed to go outside and was often left home alone. Police found the boy wearing a dirty diaper running next to Lake Shore Drive on Sunday, and an investigation found he had been fed sporadically, was frequently locked in a closet and beaten with household objects, prosecutors said in court.
As found at DreminDemon: Prosecutors say the boy claimed to have been beaten with an extension cord, a pole, and a baseball bat. Even more disturbing is the boy’s claims that he was once forced to sit on the stove as his genitals were burned with a curling iron.
He and his sister were placed in protective custody Sunday, according to the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services.
Neighbors on the same floor said they saw both Woods and her boyfriend in the halls, but they did not talk much to them. One neighbor described the boyfriend as a “know-it-all,” but said she had only talked to him once.
According to prosecutors, Woods’ boyfriend forced the boy to sit on a hot stove and burned his genitalia with a hot curling iron.
