4-year-old found unconscious was ‘routinely bound in plastic wrap,’ Virginia cops say
A 4-year-old boy was found unconscious at an apartment complex, police said. Now, three family members are charged in connection to his death.
Officers responded to an apartment in Manassas, about a 30-mile drive southwest from Washington, D.C., where they located a boy who was “severely malnourished and dehydrated,” the Prince William County Police Department said in a Jan. 30 news release.
Rescuers tried to perform CPR on the boy — whom law enforcement is not naming due to his age — before taking him to a hospital where he later died, police said.
According to an investigation, the boy and his 5-year-old sister “were subject to long-term child abuse and neglect,” including regularly being deprived of food and water by the three women whom police identified as family members and primary caretakers.
The boy was also “routinely bound in plastic wrap and packing tape,” detectives said.
The 5-year-old girl and two other children, ages 12 and 14, who were living at the apartment are now in custody of Child Protective Services, police said.
The three family members were arrested Jan. 29 on murder, child abuse and neglect charges, police said. They are being held without bond.
McClatchy News is not naming the women to protect the identity of the surviving children.
Child abuse in the U.S.
More than 1,900 children died from abuse, neglect and maltreatment in 2022, according to a 2024 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The data is based on information from children in contact with the public child welfare system, the agency said.
“The numbers of child maltreatment deaths are higher than they were five years ago,” Jeff Hild, then-acting assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families, said in a 2024 statement. “We need to further understand the underlying circumstances of these fatalities so we can continue to enhance and expand our prevention efforts to keep children safe.”
This story was originally published January 31, 2025 at 9:59 AM with the headline "4-year-old found unconscious was ‘routinely bound in plastic wrap,’ Virginia cops say."
