For years, San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson said, six foster children in the Victorville home of Kenneth and Tina Key suffered from physical and emotional abuse.
Finally, one day in February, the eldest left the home and went to a grocery store, where she eventually contacted law enforcement, Anderson told a Southern California News Group reporter on Wednesday, May 14. The 16-year-old’s bravery triggered an investigation that Anderson said revealed that the Keys and their adult daughter had subjected the children they were supposed to protect to strangulation, daily beatings and starvation.
Some of the children had been taped down and some had gone days without food or water, Anderson also disclosed. And some of the children, ages 4 to 16, recorded the abuse in journals and with photographs, Anderson said.
“Fortunately, one of the children had the courage to report it, saving the younger children from continued years of abuse,” Anderson said.
Kenneth and Tina Key, both 60, and daughter Katlynn Key, 23, were arrested Monday and were charged Wednesday with six counts of torture — one for each alleged victim — and one count of child abuse under circumstances likely to cause great bodily injury or death. They are scheduled to enter pleas via video on Thursday in Superior Court in Rancho Cucamonga.
Court records do not list attorneys who could speak for any of the three.
They each are being held in lieu of $1 million bail. The District Attorney’s Office has filed a motion to increase bail.
The oldest of the children had lived at the Helena Drive home for 10 years and the youngest for three to eight years.
The children were removed when the investigation began on Feb. 13.
Social workers, who are supposed to regularly visit foster homes, were unable to uncover any of the years-long abuse or were unable to substantiate any allegations the children might have made.
Messages to San Bernardino County Children and Family Services, which oversees foster homes in the county and works with foster family agencies to place children, were not returned Tuesday and Wednesday.
“There is some indication that when there were visits by social workers, the kids were told to go on script,” Anderson said.
Experts on investigations into child abuse say confirming such crimes can be difficult because of a reluctance of children and their abusers to tell the truth.
The Victorville children have received health exams and will receive additional screenings for physical and cognitive problems, Anderson said. He noted that doctors have found some scarring.
The effects of the abuse, Anderson said, were not as severe as those suffered by 12 of the 13 children of David and Louise Turpin in their Perris home. Some of those children appeared years younger than their actual ages and their cognitive growth was delayed because of malnutrition. Their education had amounted to little more than a first-grade level because of the sham homeschool operated by their father. The Turpin parents were sentenced to 25 years to life in prison after being convicted.
The subsequent foster parents of six of the Turpins were also convicted of abuse.
The Key foster children, meanwhile, attended school outside of the home, Anderson said.
Anderson declined to discuss a possible motive.
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