COLE CAMP, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri sheriff says a 4-year-old girl died after being dunked in an icy pond and beaten by two neighbors who claimed it was necessary to remove a “demon.”
According to court documents, 35-year-old Ethan Mast and 21-year-old Kourtney Aumen had been regularly beating a neighboring family for two weeks prior to the four-year-old victim being beaten and forced into a pond, resulting in her death.
Documents say her body was severely bruised from her neck to her feet on both the front and back sides.
Benton County Sheriff Eric Knox says the crime appears to be the result of “some kind of honest-to-goodness religious-type episode.”
Deputies were called Sunday to a rural home near the town of Cole Camp and found the 4-year-old wrapped in a blanket. A probable cause statement says she had severe bruising and blisters over her body.
The victim’s father told the deputy that the alleged killer, Mast, and his partner, Aumen, had been beating his entire family for approximately two weeks. He had allegedly used a wooden spoon and a leather belt to inflict the beatings.
“I asked how he could let people do this to his family, and he stated that they were told (the mother) had a “demon” inside her, and her children would end up just like her if it was not taken care of,” court documents say.
The father said that Mast and Aumen threatened him and said if he did not comply, someone would get shot. The father also told police that if he or his wife provided aid or comfort to the children or themselves, it would be a sin, and satan would come.
Mast and Aumen told investigators during interviews after being arrested that they did beat the children and their mother. They also said they forced the mother and daughter to a pond where more assaults occurred.