Homeschooling’s 

Invisible Children

Minnet and Jasmine Bowman and Sister

Minnet (age 9) and Jasmine (age 7) Bowman were murdered in 2006 by their adoptive mother, Renee Bowman, their bodies stored in her basement freezer. The murders were discovered two years later when their then-7-year-old sister jumped out of a second-story window to escape imprisonment in her room. She was found by authorities with open […]

Child of Daniel Ballard

When police went to a trailer park in Louisiana to evict Daniel Ballard, they found a malnourished 14-year-old boy who weighed only 60 pounds and had untreated infected injuries on his arms and foot. The trailer’s conditions were filthy, and had no food or running water. Ballard claimed he was homeschooling the boy, who was […]

Colin David Jones

Paramedics responding to a 911 call on Christmas Eve about an “unresponsive” child found that 6-year-old child had physical injuries that suggested foul play. The child was taken to the regional hospital and then airlifted elsewhere for care, where he died four days later in spite of efforts to save his life, and the five […]

Teddy Foltz-Tedesco and 2 siblings

Teddy Foltz-Tedesco, 14, was beaten unconscious by his mother’s boyfriend, Zaryl G. Bush. Bush then threatened Teddy’s younger twin brothers, 8, into helping him cover up the scene of the crime. Teddy was not taken to the hospital until several hours after the incident and was pronounced dead five days later, after suffering from internal […]

Emani Moss

Police found 10-year-old Emani Moss’s burned body in a trash can several days after she was starved to death at the hands of her father and stepmother, Eman and Tiffany Moss. After a tip from a school employee, social services had intervened in Emani’s family three years earlier, removing her from her parents’ home for […]

3 Children of Fernando and Sophia Richter

Two girls, ages 12 and 13, escaped through a window in their room and ran to alert a neighbor to their plight after their stepfather threatened them with a knife. Police found a third girl, aged 17, locked in a separate bedroom. The girls’ mother reported that they were being homeschooled. All three girls were […]

1 Child of Rene Tibucio Valenzuela

A 14-year-old girl was physically and sexually abused by her father, Rene Tibucio Valenzuela, and locked in a small, dark empty bedroom for 15 months. The girl was only let out of the room for brief bathroom and meal breaks, and was occasionally allowed to shower. The girl escaped in 2005 by kicking in the bedroom […]

3 Grandchildren of John Pierre Baker and Betty Jo Miller

In 1997, two children, a boy and a girl, clawed a hole in the room of their trailer home prison and escaped into the Arizona desert. Their story began ten years before, when their mother went to prison for theft and forgery and they were placed in the custody of their grandfather, John Pierre Baker. […]

Jessyca Mullenberg

13-year-old Jessyca Mullenberg was kidnapped from her father’s home in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, by her writing teacher, Steven Oliver, on September 16, 1995. Oliver and Jessyca drove to Kansas City, Missouri, and then flew to Houston, Texas. Oliver took Jessyca from motel to motel, presenting himself as her father and physically, sexually, and mentally abusing […]

Michaela Watkins

Michaela Watkins, aged 10, was found dead in her family’s apartment on March 11, 2007. Her body was severely bruised and burned. Michaela’s father, Patrick Watkins, and her stepmother, Joy Watkins, claimed that Michaela’s death was an accident—that she had burned herself in hot water in a bathtub and then fallen down the stairs. Michaela […]