Silver Spring woman admits she abused child who told police she was imprisoned

Scott McCabe

A Silver Spring woman pleaded guilty to child abuse in a case involving a 12-year-girl who told police she escaped from her adopted home after being tied up and locked in a room without food for days.

Hyacinth Morgan, 48, was indicted on charges of first-degree child abuse, second-degree child abuse, first-degree assault and false imprisonment. Morgan pleaded guilty to the second-degree charge Tuesday and faces up to 15 years in prison at her sentencing July 10.

Montgomery County police discovered the girl in June after getting a call from workers at a McDonald’s restaurant at 2741 University Blvd. in Wheaton.

The girl had two black eyes, bruises on her face and body, and no shoes. She was visibly shaken, according to police. She told the officers that she was hungry from not having eaten for days and had crawled out of a window of a residence on Ecceleston Street in Silver Spring. She walked through the neighborhood and flagged down a passerby who agreed to drive the girl to her favorite fast-food joint.

Police drove her to Children’s National Medical Center for treatment of trauma.

The girl told authorities that she was adopted by a woman from Jamaica, Hyacinth Morgan, who had beat her since the girl was 9.

Most recently, she said, her adoptive mother took her into a bedroom, ordered her to remove her clothes and tied her to a bed using a rope. Morgan began to beat her with different objects, causing injuries to her eyes, forehead, back, buttocks and genital area, she said.

Morgan then locked her in a room and didn’t give her food, she said. The girl couldn’t say how long she had been imprisoned, but thought it could have been as long as a week, documents said.

When confronted, Morgan told police the black eyes were likely caused by the girl’s 9-year-old sister, according to the police report. The bruises to her daughter’s body could have been caused by “purposefully” falling off a treadmill while exercising.