DELAWARE, Ohio — A Delaware couple is facing felony charges related to the alleged abuse of their seven children, including excessive punishments, like locking a child in a shed overnight and feeding him dog food.
Jason Fuller is set to be arraigned on Thursday morning and is facing nine felony charges, including endangering children and intimidation.
Prosecutors said he imposed excessive punishment on his children, including using a belt causing bruising, isolation tactics, locking children in a shed, limiting their contact with family members, restricting their ability to speak, feeding dog food, physical restraint and extreme physical exercise resulting in the loss of consciousness of one child.
His wife, Kristelle Fuller, was arraigned on four charges on Tuesday, including felony obstruction of justice, permitting child abuse and misdemeanor endangering children.
“This defendant is a parent and violated the duty of care to protect all those minors during that period. Further, the defendant permitted this physical abuse that resulted in serious physical harm to at least one of the children,” said Sayje Brown with the Delaware County Prosecutor’s Office.
Kristelle is also accused of frequently instructing the children to lie about the abuse to authorities.
In September, the Delaware Police Department went to the family’s home to investigate after receiving information from Delaware County Job and Family Services.
One of the victims told police he was locked overnight in a shed in the backyard when he was 14 years old and fed dog food. During that conversation, he told police he was asked to wear a device to record their conversation.
Neighbors said the Fullers had moved to Delaware in 2015.
“She would have them out here running, P.E. because she homeschooled and there were times the little ones were out here with no shoes on and it was sad,” said neighbor Ellie Eldredge. “My first year here I made them scarves because they were outside in the winter with no coats and I just, as a mom, it was just sad and they were always asking for food, it was sad.”
Neighbors noticed the children were disciplined but say they could not have known about the abuse described by prosecutors.
“It was well hidden. Now the kids did a lot of work. They were telling me when they ripped the drywall out of the basement the kids did it, and they wanted to use everybody’s trash cans for it. Now the kids said they also took turns being in charge of the meals and they did all the cooking and all the cleaning and I thought, that is a lot more than my kids did,” said neighbor Anita Shively.
In court, one of the victims spoke on Kristelle’s behalf, asking the judge for permission for her and her siblings to maintain contact with their mother. She told the court her mother was also a victim of her father’s abuse.
The judge denied that request and issued a no-contact order.
The bond for Kristelle was set at $75,000.