Police say Houston mom adopted girls, beat them with stick

Police say Houston mom adopted girls, beat them with stick

By Robert Stanton | April 22, 2013 | Updated: April 22, 2013 4:15pm

A Houston mom has been jailed for severely "flogging" her two Nigerian adoptive daughters last month at their southwest Houston home, according to Harris County prosecutors.

Onyeka Lucy Asonye, 46, faces two counts of felony injury to a child, court records show. A judge denied bail for Asonye, who was being held Monday at the Harris County Jail.

A daycare worker called investigators March 1 when she noticed the 3-year-old girl had a large bump on her forehead and a swollen and shut eye, according to an arrest warrant filed in the case. Both the toddler and her sister, 4, had multiple bruises and scars over their entire bodies.

A physician at Texas Children's Hospital reported that the 3-year-old had multiple abrasions and healing scars to her back, abdomen, chest and legs, had swelling to both hands, suffered a possible abdominal injury, and had a puncture wound to her right scalp, prosecutors said.

The 4-year-old sustained multiple abrasions and healing scars to her trunk/back, and also suffered a possible abdominal injury, the physician stated.

Investigators said that Asonye struck both girls with a stick, and pushed the 4-year-old against a wall.

Questioned by police, she initially denied that she hurt her daughters. She later confessed to causing some of the scars and bruising to the girls by "flogging" them with sticks at their home, prosecutors said.

"The defendant stated she did not hit the complainant's (victims) in a specific place, but where is closest to her at the moment when she hits them," the arrest warrant states.

She told police, "I wasn't trying to abuse them I want the best for them and myself that is the only reason I beat them," prosecutors said.

Asonye adopted the girls from Nigeria as infants and has had full custody of them since 2011, court records show.

She lives alone with the girls, who are now in the custody of Child Protective Services.