In 2022, the teenage twins were able to escape their Cypress home and ran through the neighborhood naked, asking for help.
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — A woman who held her twin teenagers captive, tortured them, and forced them to live in horrific conditions will likely spend decades in prison.
Zaikiya Duncan was found guilty of aggravated assault of a family member and was given a 45-year sentence.
Duncan, now 43, and her husband, Jova Terrell, were arrested in Louisiana in 2022.
The details of the case are disturbing.
What happened
Three years ago, the twin boy and girl were able to escape from their Cypress home and alert authorities about the abuse they had been going through.
The victims, then 16, described several examples of the horrific abuse that they said took place behind the closed doors of a large home on Marina Alto Lane, which is in a neighborhood near the intersection of Fry Road and West Road.
The boy said Duncan once gave him 24 Benadryl tablets to make him sleep. He said it caused him to have a seizure. After that, he said she lowered the dosage to 20 tablets. The girl was also given an unspecified amount of Benadryl.
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The victims said their mother poured bleach down their throats and on their genitals until it burned their skin. She also made them drink cleaners like Lysol and Easy Off if they “talked too much.”
They told investigators they weren’t allowed to use the restroom and were forced to defecate and urinate on themselves and then eat and drink it. They only had dirty water from a mop bucket to wash off.
The teens said their mother beat them with extension cords, curtain rods, and other metal poles, and Terrell often punched the boy.
The victims said they were starved and fed only mustard sandwiches, relish sandwiches or bologna sandwiches one to three times a week. Investigators said the twins were severely malnourished when they escaped.
They were kept naked and handcuffed to a dolly in the laundry room, and their feet were often zip-tied. Both had cuts, bruises and scars on their wrists and ankles, along with other parts of their bodies, court documents said.
How they escaped
The boy said he found the key to the handcuffs in his mother’s purse and hid it in his mouth. Around 5 a.m. on Oct. 18, 2022, they unlocked the handcuffs and ran door to door through the neighborhood, pleading for help.
The boy was shirtless, and the girl was using a grocery bag for a shirt. Both were barefoot and shivering when a woman in a nearby subdivision answered her door, even though she said she was “terrified.”
“They said, ‘Can you help us, can you help us?'” the woman told KHOU 11. “They were so skinny and so frail. They just looked like they had been through a lot.”
She wrapped them in blankets and fed them, and said both were very polite, even as they began describing some of the abuse.
“The more I asked and realized how severe the situation was, it was just a flood of emotions that came over me,” she told KHOU 11 reporter Anayeli Ruiz. “How a mother could do this to her kids and … I feel like my tears are out of frustration, anger, and sadness.”
The good Samaritan then called the authorities. The teens were taken to an area hospital and deputies were sent to the home to investigate. By then, Duncan, Terrell, and five younger boys, ages 8 to 14, were gone and an AMBER Alert was issued.
Hours later, Duncan and Terrell were arrested in Baton Rouge. Only one child was with the couple when they were caught. The other four boys were later found safe with relatives in Louisiana. All seven children were placed in Child Protective Services custody.
The twins who escaped told investigators their 12-year-old twin brothers were also abused and forced to stay in a restroom.
Jerrell is awaiting trial.
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