UNNAMED BOY - 9 yo (5/14) - / Charged: Parents, Jeffery and Brandy Graham - Latta, OK

5-15-2014

LATTA, Okla. – An Oklahoma couple is behind bars after a stunning child abuse investigation.



Jeffery and Brandy Graham are behind bars and are accused of severely abusing Jeffery’s young son.

The little boy is 9-years-old and only weighs 35 pounds.

Investigators are trying to figure out exactly what was going on inside their home in the town of Latta near Ada.

Authorities say the little boy was malnourished, dehydrated and covered in bruises and scratches from head to toe, and his forehead was covered in a bandage.

He was immediately taken to the hospital and his parents were taken into custody.

The pictures of the alleged abuse are too graphic too show.

“He has injuries to certain parts of his body that just are unbelievable. It brings you to tears if you saw those and certainly something I can’t talk about on camera but it’s some really bad bruising,” Pontotoc County Sheriff John Christian said. “This child has had severe trauma.”

The boy is nine years old, has Cerebral Palsy and weighs only 35 pounds.

He uses a walker and leg braces to get around, but despite that, investigators say his father and step mother, Jeffery and Brandy Graham, tried to confine him even more.

“At one point he was duct taped to a bed,” Christian said.

The child also told detectives his step mother “put his hands behind his back and beat his head against the wall multiple times and spread his legs” because she believed the boy “caused her to have a miscarriage” and she “wanted him to feel the pain that he put her through.”

“These cases always just tear at your heart. If you could show these pictures to the public, which we can’t, I truly believe they would be totally outraged that someone could do this to a child especially a disabled child,” Christian said. “I’m a father, and it’s kind of hard.”

The Grahams are facing charges of child abuse, child neglect and failure to protect.

http://kfor.com/2014/05/15/couple-behind-bars-after-stunning-child-abuse-investigation/