Teen Girl with Mental Capacity of Toddler Was Kept in Cage, Abused to Death in 'Deplorable' Conditions: Police
“It was just very deplorable conditions to say the least,” a police spokesperson said
Maricopa County Sheriff's Office
Virginia LujanAn Arizona grandmother has been charged with caging her mentally disabled teenage granddaughter and abusing her to death earlier this week.
Virginia Lujan of Tempe was taken into custody by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office on felony child abuse charges related to her 13-year-old granddaughter’s death, PEOPLE has confirmed.
Lujan’s granddaughter had the mental capacity of a 3-year-old and was being kept by her grandmother in a makeshift cage inside the home, ABC 15, Fox 10, and AZFamily.com reported, citing local police.
ABC 15 reported that the girl’s mother, Jami Hodges, was also arrested but later released while her charges are pending. The outlet reported that Hodges’ 13-year-old daughter and four other siblings were staying at Lujan’s house, in their grandmother’s care.
PEOPLE has reached out to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, where Lujan was taken into custody Tuesday, for more information.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.
The grandmother reportedly called authorities and informed them she discovered the 13-year-old girl unresponsive and not breathing, according to Fox 10. The teenager, covered in bruises and sores, was then rushed to a local hospital and later pronounced dead Wednesday morning, according to the outlet.
AZFamily reported that Lujan told police the 13-year-old had fallen down the stairs on Sunday, days before she was found unresponsive, but did not receive medical attention because the grandmother believed the teenager would be fine.
Officers who searched Lujan’s home after the girl’s death alleged the cage where the grandmother had been keeping her granddaughter was "full of feces and had a foul odor,” ABC 15 reported, citing police documents.
Jessica Ells, a spokesperson for the Tempe Police Department, told AZFamily that Lujan’s home “was very disorderly” and “not very clean” when officers searched the premises, where they discovered the makeshift cage.
“The best way to describe it, it was a bunk bed, but the lower bed of that bunk was not there. And the bunk bed around the bottom was surrounded by baby cages and makeshift bars,” the police spokesperson told the outlet.
“It was just very deplorable conditions to say the least,” Ellis added.
ABC 15, Fox 10, and AZ Family reported that Hodges’ four other children are now in the care of child protective services.
If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
Read the original article on People