The Child Who Grew Up Inside A Closet, Lauren Kavanaugh's Horrible Torture

On June 11, 2001, cops arrived to the Hutchins, Texas, home of Kenneth and Barbara Atkinson. They'd gotten a message reporting that Barbara's child, eight-year-old Lauren Kavanaugh, was being assaulted, but nothing could have prepared them for what they witnessed when they entered.

Since she was so little, the first officer who arrived assumed she was a baby. The tiny girl was transported to a Texas hospital, where physicians were shocked to discover that she was the size of a typical two-year-old. Authorities promptly began examining how this might have happened — and the truth was considerably worse than anybody had anticipated.

Lauren Kavanaugh had been imprisoned in a closet for six years, and the Atkinson family had only taken her out to sexually assault and torment her. Her organs were trying to shut down because of hunger, and her lower body was red and tearing from months of squatting in her own urine and excrement.

Several specialists said that she would never lead a regular life, but when she finished school in 2013, she shocked everyone. Though she is still dealing with the pain of her mother's horrible abuse and has experienced legal troubles of her own, she is still trying to move on from her past as "the girl in the closet."

Birth, Adoption, and Return to Lauren Kavanaugh's Original Mother

Lauren Kavanaugh was born on April 12, 1993, although her mother, Barbara, had already planned to adopt her. Sabrina Kavanaugh, the lady who intended to raise Lauren, was present in the birth room and subsequently told The Dallas Morning News how thrilled she and her spouse were to bring the baby into their house.

Sabrina commented, "It was the greatest day of our life. I think you could say we loved her before she was born. We had a room just for her and her little clothing. It was wonderful."

Sabrina had met Barbara, 21, many months before, just after she realized she was pregnant. They met several times before Lauren's birth to discuss the adoption arrangements. Sabrina recalled, "she was determined she wanted to give it up." "She had no idea who the dad was."

Sabrina and her partner Bill treated Lauren as if she were their own for the following eight months. Nevertheless, they were notified one day that Barbara had filed a petition for custody of the baby. The Kavanaughs' lawyer had never submitted the paperwork to revoke Barbara's parental rights, and she was eager to reclaim Lauren.

Barbara's mother, Doris Calhoun, told The Dallas Morning News, "Barbie had every right to alter her mind." A woman who decides to give up a kid is not abandoning that child; rather, she is making a loving decision. That is a kind option, a lovely one, and she is a good person to have made that choice."

Barbara and her current husband, Kenneth Atkinson, were quickly granted more and more time with Lauren by the court. During the following year, the Kavanaughs had to gradually relinquish the girl they'd nurtured as their daughter, despite their suspicions that the Atkinson's were torturing her.

Sabrina Kavanaugh observed the area under Lauren's diapers was blazing red at one point. "I don't believe that was diaper rash," she said. "I believe Kenny was already sexually assaulting her since she refused to allow us touch her diaper."

Lauren was taken to the hospital by Sabrina, but physicians refused to run a rape kit. The Kavanaughs then presented the judge with 45 images as proof, but he warned them, "You're inflicting more harm to this infant with all these photographs than that mother would ever do."

Lauren was granted permanent custody by Judge Lynn E. Markham in 1995. The tiny child would suffer terrible torment for the following six years.

The Horrible Life of "The Girl In The Closet"

Doctors claimed that Lauren Kavanaugh stopped developing at the age of two when she was saved from the Atkinson household in 2001, the same age she was when she was brought back to her biological mother.

"It began off with Barbie basically laying Lauren next to her on the floor on a pallet," Detective Sergeant David Landers told The Dallas Morning News. Then Lauren would get up and walk into the other room, where she would get into things, so Barbie began keeping her in the closet with a small gate over it."

When Lauren was old enough just to force it down, Barbie just closed the door.

Lauren was still taken to family occasions with her other five siblings for the first few years. Doris, Barbara's mother, subsequently recalled Lauren continuously attempting to eat anything she could find while she was at her place, and Barbara informed her that Lauren had an eating condition.

Doris stopped seeing Lauren after Thanksgiving 1999, when she was six years old. Doris never verified Barbara's claims that she was at a friend's house.

Lauren Kavanaugh, in truth, was trapped in her mother's closet, living on cold soup, biscuits, and butter that her elder sister occasionally slipped in to her. When she was permitted to exit the closet, she was subjected to much harsher suffering than the loneliness she felt within.

Kenneth and Barbara Atkinson both sexually molested the little child since she was a baby. Blake Strohl, Lauren's sister, recalled hearing the girl's screams from the guest room and assuming her parents were abusing her.

While the Atkinson family wasn't raping Lauren, they gave her out to pedophiles. Lauren panicked the first Halloween after her rescue when she spotted someone costumed as a clown and said, "Are you bringing me to the Candyman's house?" One of the men who assaulted her on a daily basis wore a clown costume and nicknamed himself the Candyman.

Lauren Kavanaugh endured terrible physical abuse from both her mother and stepdad. Barbara would giggle the entire time she washed Lauren, holding her head under the flowing water until she couldn't breathe.

She'd also put a bowl of macaroni and cheese in front of the starving kid and instruct her, "Chew it, but don't swallow." Lauren was the only kid who was consistently refused food and confined up, despite the fact that Kenneth and Barbara had five other children who were exposed to other sorts of abuse.

"I never liked Lauren," Barbara subsequently told Child Protective Services. “I never desired her. As my other children suffer, I suffer as well. I felt nothing when Lauren was in pain."

Kenneth Atkinson made the decision to tell someone about Lauren after six years of continual assault. It's unclear if it was due to a change of mind or a violent act of retribution after he discovered Barbara was cheating on him, but Lauren's lonely existence in solitary confinement ended in June 2001.

Lauren Kavanaugh's Rescue

Kenneth Atkinson informed his neighbor Jeanie Rivers on June 11, 2001, that he needed to show her something. He walked her to the closet, opened the door, and exposed the secret he and Barbara had kept for almost a decade.

"What I saw was a monster, a teeny little creature," Rivers later explained. “She was weak and devoid of color. Her arms looked to be less than an inch big to me. She was completely nude."

Rivers and her husband phoned the cops, who responded quickly. "I come in and I'm searching for an eight-year-old, only I saw what looked like a three-year-old sitting there," said Gary McClain, the first officer on the scene. So I immediately asked, 'Where is Lauren?'"

The little lady had cigarette burns and puncture wounds all over her body, and she made complaints about the bugs in her hair. When officers queried her age, she said she was two "because that's how many birthday parties I've had."

Doctors determined she weighed only 25.6 pounds when she arrived at the hospital. Her throat was blocked with plastic, carpet fibers, and excrement, and her genitals were so disfigured from years of sexual abuse that she only had one entrance for her vagina and anus. Several reconstructive procedures were necessary to correct the damage.

"We've got children that have been beaten," one doctor remarked of Lauren. We've had children who have gone hungry. There have been children who have been sexually molested, neglected, and psychologically abused. Yet we've never had a kid who has everything."

Lauren's brain had atrophied as a result of being imprisoned in a closet throughout her most critical formative years, and most doctors didn't believe she'd ever live a normal life. "If you had asked me then, I would have told you there was very little future and hope for this girl," said Dr. Barbara Rila, a Dallas psychologist who examined Lauren shortly after her rescue. I'd never seen a child who was so physically and emotionally devastated."

Yet, because to the efforts of Lauren's original adoptive parents, Bill and Sabrina Kavanaugh, the "girl in the closet" eventually started having a life outside of her four-by-eight-foot enclosure.

Lauren's Settlement With The Kavanaughs And Her Prolonged Healing

When the Kavanaughs found out what had happened, they immediately contacted out to see if Lauren might be adopted again. "Is this my new mom and dad?" the eight-year-old inquired the first time she saw them.

Lauren was having difficulty adjusting to her new life. She wasn't toilet trained, didn't know how to use a knife or a fork, and she guarded her food with her life because she was frightened someone would take it from her. She cried the first time she stepped outdoors barefoot that bugs were stinging her feet since she'd never felt grass before.

Yet, after working closely with Lauren and her therapist, Bill and Sabrina Kavanaugh legally adopted her in July 2002, 13 months after Lauren was saved from the Atkinson family.

Lauren's life has been difficult since then. According to CBS News, she battles with her mental health, was raped by her cousin's spouse when she was 12, and was jailed in 2018 for sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl herself. She was determined incompetent to face trial and was confined to a mental health facility.

Meanwhile, Kenneth and Barbara Atkinson are both serving life sentences for felony child harm, according to PEOPLE.

Lauren has attempted to learn from her awful experience throughout it all. "I don't want to be like my parents," she said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News. "It is my primary emphasis." I'm afraid of turning out like them because I feel it every day. I, like my mother, am filled with fury. The only difference is that I'm attempting to exert control over it."