TAMPA -- A missing child case led to the arrest of two people on child abuse charges.
Detectives with the Hillsborough Sheriff's Office say deputies responded to a Tampa home early Sunday morning for reports of a missing boy. They found him hiding in the home. The boy told deputies he had been handcuffed and forced to stnd in a closet as punishment... daily for about 16 hours a day, over several weeks.
They say 41-year-old John Hernandez admitted to handcuffing the boy and placing him in the closet as punishment for behavior, from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Detectives also tell us 37-year-old Natasha Dabbs admitted knowing it was happening and not trying to prevent it, saying it had been going on since Christmas.
Hernandez and Dabbs were arrested and booked into the Orient Road Jail. Their relationship to the victim is not released because of Marsy's Law.
Photo: HCSO