MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – One woman was arrested Sunday and charged with unlawful neglect of a child, five counts of child abuse and second degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor 11-14.
Booking reports say Tracy Lynn Mustafa, 42, from Loma Montana is currently being held at the J Reuben Long Detention Center.
Incident reports from Horry County police say that the abuse took place from Oct. 2015 to May 2016.
The reports say police were called to Grand Strand Hospital regarding assault on a 9-year-old on May 18. The father, who was the complainant, reported that upon his return home from work, he learned that his daughter had sustained an injury, and five days later it was still “tender”. The father and his wife, the suspect, argued about how the injury occurred and how it was handled, and the father took his two remaining daughters from the hospital.
The report says while the father was traveling with his daughters, he learned of the activity that was occurring in the home from the girls’ step-mother. The report says in the meantime, the father learned that the stepmother had cleaned out the bank account and taken control of the family vehicle.
The victim, who was 8 years old at the time, told officers that she sustained the injury after an incident with the stepmother as a result of “being in trouble”.
When police interviewed the three siblings, the children said they had been victimized by their stepmother since October 2015. The police report was heavily redacted, but did say that there were multiple visits to the hospital where the children were treated for injuries reported as “falls or attributed to the weather”.
The victims reported that it was common practice for the step-mother to beat the children, pull their hair until “tuffs” were pulled out, creating bald spots, make the victims drink excessive amounts of water and prevent them from using the bathroom, not preparing meals for the children but making them watch the suspect eat, forcing them to sleep on mounds of ice with a fan directed at them at night, make them stand for long periods of time as punishment and to bite the victim’s fingers until they bled.
The Department of Social Services was contacted, and was able to provide temporary lodging for the victims and the father.
