ANDERSON — An Anderson woman was sentenced to 12 years in prison Monday for her involvement in the neglect of a disabled teenager who was locked away, beaten and starved.
A jury found Crystal Sells, 23, guilty of three felony counts of neglect of a dependent and three felony counts of neglect of a dependent resulting in serious bodily injury. The teenager is Sells' adoptive father's granddaughter.
Sells’ mother, Joetta, and her adoptive father, Steve, pleaded guilty to multiple charges of neglect of a dependent and neglect of a dependent resulting in serious bodily injury in 2015. They were both given 24 years in prison, the maximum sentence for neglect.
The neglected girl was under the care of Steve and Joetta beginning in 2009. In December 2014, she was hospitalized for severe malnutrition. Although she was 15 years old, she weighed less than 40 pounds.
She looked “like something out of a Nazi concentration camp,” an officer who responded at the scene said during the jury trial.
The room the couple kept her locked in had no light save what came in through the window. When investigators searched the room, they found a mattress, a bucket, blankets and a bowl of cold oatmeal.
“There was some blood on the floor and feces on everything in the room,” a police officer wrote in a probable cause affidavit.
Through interviews with family members and neighbors, investigators found the girl was physically abused by the Sellses. A former roommate in the house said she had seen Crystal beat the girl over the head with a plastic chair and lock her in the bathroom, according to court documents. In 2010, the Department of Child Services filed a petition alleging that the girl was malnourished and mistreated but later asked that the petition be dismissed due to lack of evidence.
In her hearing at Madison County Circuit Court, Crystal Sells looked no older than 16. The giant peach and beige stripes on the prison jumpsuit made it look like she was wearing too-big pajamas. Hands cuffed and in her lap, she wore wire-rimmed glasses, and her hair was pulled back in a messy bun.
When she sat down in the courtroom, she turned back to where her biological fathe was sitting behind her and smiled.
Throughout the hearing, Sells’ attorney tried to show the judge that Sells had been a victim in the case, too. He described the isolation of her days in her mother’s house: home-schooling, no driver’s license, few friends and no freedom.
Sells’ speech was short and riddled with gasps and sobs. She pleaded with the judge and said she felt powerless against her mother and adoptive father. She said she regretted not stepping in to protect the girl, but insisted she had also suffered.
“I have no idea who I am,” she choked. “I may be 23, but I have no idea how to live on my own.”
Sells’ biological father, who was not involved in the crime, was the only witness called during the hearing. In a quiet voice, he explained that he had been separated from Crystal when her mother divorced him and had spent many years away from her. Before the trial, however, the court had permitted her to stay with him in Tennessee. They’d been happy there together, he said.
“What sticks out in my head is that she always wanted to give me a hug before I went to bed each night,” her father said.
He told the judge he didn’t think his daughter knew anything of the real world and that he wasn’t sure she would survive prison.
As he delivered the sentence, Judge Mark Dudley told Sells he was focused more on holding her accountable for what she’d done rather than rehabilitating her. He pointed out she had lied to police on multiple occasions and conspired with her mother to conceal the crime.
He read off things she’d said in statements to police in a somber voice.
“I didn’t do it by myself.”
“I don’t want to go to jail.”
“I know we’re all going to get in trouble.”
“I should have come out about this a long time ago.”
Sells might have done less damage to the girl than her parents had, but every day for two years and nine months, she had still committed a deplorable crime, Dudley said.
When she heard her sentence, Sells whimpered. She began to cry, her shoulders quaking. Her attorney wrapped an arm around her.
Her biological father dropped his head into his hands as the judge finished speaking.
When the hearing ended and the courtroom emptied, Sells stood in the center in her father’s arms.
She sobbed into his shoulder until bailiffs took her away.
