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A Michigan woman was arrested and hit with felony charges after she allegedly kept her disabled sister-in-law locked in a basement for two years, where she nearly starved the victim to death and blasted a radio non-stop.
Tasha Beamon, 48, was charged with vulnerable adult abuse and unlawful imprisonment.
The victim managed to escape the basement and broke a neighbor’s window on March 15 as she sought to enter the home, alert police and flee captivity, according to MLive.
The neighbor called 911 and the victim told police that Beamon, the wife of the 58-year-old victim’s late brother, was holding her captive in the Saginaw home’s basement for two years before she found a way to free herself.
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“She told officers she was not fed very often and that she didn’t have any access to water,” Saginaw Police Detective Sgt. Jeff Doud told the outlet.
The victim said Beamon had kept her on an old mattress since March 2024 with a nearby radio constantly blaring.
Police went to Beamon’s house and observed a lock on the basement door, a mattress on the floor and a radio playing loudly. Police also said there was a 5-gallon bucket of urine in the basement.
“Usually, somebody was there. She didn’t believe anyone was home at the time, so she was able to force a door open and escape,” Doud said.
Emergency responders transported the woman to a hospital, where she was treated for severe malnourishment. Hospital staff told police the woman would likely die if she were discharged.
The neighbor told ABC 12 that he was shocked to find the victim suddenly in his living room with a metal pipe “almost as big as she is.”
“I don’t even know how she had the power to even break the window,” the man said. “I thought she was like 78. She was tall, skin and bones.”
“She asks me to call the cops at first, which was weird. But that was the first thing she said to me: Call the cops,” he added.
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Beamon later admitted to police that she kept the woman in her house without allowing her to leave. She also made 40 calls to the hospital where her sister-in-law was staying.
Investigators suspect that Beamon was keeping the woman captive to collect her disability payments, Doud said.
Beamon was arrested on April 2 and booked into the Saginaw County Jail on $100,000 bond, the amount ordered after prosecutors described her as a danger to the public.
She will appear for a preliminary examination on April 20.
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