A New Mexico woman who faked her own death is in custody after being found hiding behind a false wall inside a Colorado home, according to multiple reports.
Martha Crouch, 58, was arrested last week after Huerfano County deputies discovered her husband, Timothy Crouch 62, dead in front of the family home in Walsenburg, according to KRDO. He reportedly collapsed and had difficulty breathing before he died.
One of the couple’s adult children then told deputies that their mother was dead but the officers went inside the home anyway and discovered a false wall in the kitchen, behind which Crouch was hiding with a 14-year-old daughter, added KRDO.
Deputies then arrested Crouch, who had an outstanding felony warrant in New Mexico for violating her probation on child abuse charges, per the outlet
According to the Farmington Daily Times, Crouch pleaded guilty to one charge of attempted fourth-degree child abuse at a virtual hearing in San Juan County, New Mexico in December 2021. She was put on probation after most of the charges were dismissed; however, she reportedly violated her probation two days later and a warrant was issued for her arrest.
Crouch also faced charges of felony child abuse and extreme cruelty to animals in 2019 for allegedly forcing her children to witness the deaths of four puppies that she boiled alive.
The incident reportedly took place after she promised one child a birthday meal, the outlet reported. As a form of punishment, Crouch also allegedly shot a child’s dog.
She also allegedly hit one of her daughters with a spatula and assaulted another so severely that she suffered a miscarriage, per the outlet.
Court records showed that Crouch and her husband were taken into custody after authorities interviewed several of their children about the crimes, per the Associated Press.
An investigation was first launched by the San Juan County sheriff’s office when they arrested one of the couple’s adult children for attacking someone with a deadly weapon, per the outlet. Police determined that the claims were false but encountered other reports of abuse, torture and animal cruelty, according to the AP.
A teen daughter told authorities that Crouch “took the puppies and put them into a giant pot and boiled them, making all the kids watch,” according to court documents, per the outlet.
Another daughter told police that she was kept on a “fat chain” for three years because Crouch said she was overweight, per the outlet.
A son told detectives that he “had BBs still inside his arm from when the mother shot him with a shotgun,” and was “beaten, shot, stabbed and run over by his parents,” according to the outlet. He said that child welfare investigators from New Mexico visited the house to follow up on allegations of educational neglect, but Crouch drove away with three younger children and hid them at the Navajo Dam to prevent them from being seen.
Original Article
Those kids should have taken the ugly b itches oxygen away and let her suffer. Unbelievable that anyone can get away with all of this and not be in prison. Maybe they should boil her alive, seems fitting.