Half-naked woman ‘missing flesh’ and handcuffed in backyard was tortured for weeks, beaten with bat, shot with BB gun: Cops

Police found a half-naked woman handcuffed in a Texas backyard who had been tortured for a considerable period of time by five people she knew for years, authorities said.

The Austin Police Department said in a statement that officers conducted a welfare check just after 9 a.m. Oct. 30 after a report regarding a “woman in distress who appeared to be restrained and calling for help.”

The woman told investigators she ‘got in trouble’ the night before police found her because her pants fell down, according to the affidavit.

Police said they discovered a woman outside a home who was “handcuffed to a piece of exercise equipment.”

“The woman showed signs of physical distress and had visible injuries consistent with prolonged restraint,” the press release read. “The woman told officers she had been held at the residence for several months and was not allowed to leave.”

Police said they had to cut through the “heavy metal links” to release the woman who soon was taken to a local hospital for treatment.

Officers discovered three children inside the house who were “safely removed and placed in the care of Child Protective Services for safety and support.”

Police arrested five people from the residence and charged them with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault, injury to elderly or disabled, and unlawful restraint.

The suspects were identified as 51-year-old Michelle Garcia, 32-year-old Mache Carney, 30-year-old Juan Pablo Castro, 21-year-old Crystal Garcia, and 21-year-old Maynard Lefevers.

The Austin American-Statesman said it obtained the arrest affidavit, which indicated the woman told police she was friends with one of the females who lived in the house and visited often — but “one day they decided they didn’t like her anymore and no longer allowed her to leave.”

The suspects said they had known the woman for years, the affidavit stated.

Carney told police they started restraining the woman to stop her from stealing from neighbors, the affidavit said.

Several of the suspects claimed the woman suffers from mental health issues, according to the affidavit.

Crystal Garcia told investigators that the woman was only “50/50” capable of consent, the affidavit stated.

RELATED: Female reportedly orders her 5 lovers to kidnap, torture, and deprive man of food and sleep for a week at Red Roof Inn

Citing the affidavit, KVUE-TV reported that the woman had been at the home since July and had been “handcuffed inside and outside the house for months.”

Castro — the husband of Carney — admitted to purchasing the handcuffs, according to the affidavit.

According to the affidavit, the woman told detectives a male and a female repeatedly shot her with a BB gun and that she was beaten with a baseball bat and fed only once a day.

Michelle Garcia told investigators they fed the woman one meal a day because she had gotten “chunky,” according to the arrest affidavit. However, police noted that the woman appeared malnourished when she was found.

Police said the woman told them she was punished if she tried to leave and had open wounds, cuts, swollen wrists, missing flesh from her hands and feet, extensive scarring all over her body from BB gunshots, and a battered face, the American-Statesman reported, citing the affidavit.

KVUE, citing law enforcement, reported that the woman had “hundreds of small BB scars across her body and a swollen shut right eye from a pellet injury.”

The affidavit said the suspects confessed to shooting the woman with BB guns. Castro told police he bought an electric rifle-style BB gun “to shoot her” because he didn’t want to touch the woman.

According to the arrest affidavit, Castro told authorities he would come home from work, grab the BB gun from his closet, and “chase her around the yard,” firing pellets.

“I [expletive] hate her,” Castro told investigators when asked why he shot the victim, the affidavit stated.

A 4-year-old child who lived at the home told a specialist during a forensic interview that Castro — his father — shot the woman when she was “bad,” according to the affidavit. The child said he could hear the woman outside screaming, according to the affidavit.

The woman told investigators she “got in trouble” the night before police found her because her pants fell down, according to the affidavit.

The American-Statesman said as “punishment,” a number of suspects “allegedly shot her repeatedly with a BB gun,” secured her in the backyard with handcuffs, then left her there “overnight without pants or food as temperatures dipped into the 40s.” The paper, citing police, added that the woman said she “begged and cried to be released, but was threatened with more and worse violence” if she kept pleading.

The investigation is ongoing, and those with information about the case are urged to contact the Austin Police Department’s Human Trafficking Unit at 512-974-4786 or submit an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers at austincrimestoppers.org or 512-472-8477.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!