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Cache County couple charged child abuse allegedly withheld meals, kept boy locked in room with no carpet

Posted at 7:26 AM, Jul 11, 2018
and last updated 2018-07-11 09:30:50-04

CACHE COUNTY, Utah — A Cache County couple has been charged with felony child abuse almost a year after the case was reported to police.

Craig and Paulette Boersma are each charged with one count of child abuse—intentionally inflicting serious injury—as a second-degree felony, according to charging documents filed Monday.

According to a search warrant filed in September of 2017, North Park Police went to the couple’s Hyde Park home after receiving a report from Division of Child and Family Services.

The search warrant alleges a 7-year-old boy was being denied meals and was seen wearing the same clothes for a long period of time. Police interviewed the boy, and he told them he had to sleep in on the floor naked with one blanket. He said the room did not have carpet because he would sometimes eat or pee on the carpet.

The boy also slept with no padding, bedding or pillow for months.

The boy told police he was sometimes locked in that room for an entire day at a time and sometimes would not get meals. He said sometimes his parents would let him out to use the bathroom but other times he was left to urinate in the locked bathroom.

The boy said his parents used a camera to monitor him while in the locked room. He also told police his parents would put him in “an ice cold shower telling him ‘I hope you remember how this feels,'” as a punishment.

Paulette Boersma told police in an interview there was a live camera feed that showed them the boy’s room and that the boy had to wave his arms back and forth to get their attention so they could communicate with him through a microphone.