KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Kansas City couple accused of locking a malnourished 8-year-old girl in a bedroom has been acquitted of assault and child endangerment.
The Kansas City Star reports that Jackson County Judge Robert Schieber determined Tuesday that prosecutors hadn’t proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Jeffrey and Michele Kraft had intended to injure the girl. He said the couple did what they could.
Prosecutors charged the Krafts in 2012 after authorities found the girl in her bedroom, which had been locked from the outside. Police reported she was scrubbing the floor with bleach “because she had to urinate in the room.”
The defense said the girl was skinny, not malnourished, and speculated the case was handled aggressively because it came on the heels of the discovery of a 32-pound 10-year-old.