Couple accused of beating, starving and imprisoning adopted teenage twins

A couple is accused of beating, starving and imprisoning their adopted twins for years.

Jeff Weller, 42, and Sandra Weller, 48, of Vancouver, Washington, face second degree assault, unlawful imprisonment and criminal mistreatment charges for allegedly abusing their adopted twins.

They were arrested on October 12 after police were tipped off by child protective services.

Court documents say the couple kept food under lock and key and fed very small amounts to their adopted 16-year-old twins an average of once a day.

The twins told police they had to constantly steal food to survive.

When they were caught, the Wellers forced them to take off their pants and underwear and lie on the kitchen floor while Jeff Weller beat them with a 42in wooden stick, often making them bleed, according to court documents.

Now neighbours in the quiet suburban street are regretting not acting earlier.

They suspected something was wrong in the Wellers' home when they were awakened by late-night shouting at the house.

Last month, one neighboring family discovered three large containers of Greek yogurt missing from their refrigerator, and another family discovered ripe tomatoes had been snatched from their vines. Both neighbors assumed the culprits were the skinny twins.

They were saddened to learn the Wellers have been accused of beating them, confining them in a room with no doorknob or electricity and withholding food.

Yelena Makhanov, 24, who lives across from the Wellers, told oregonlive.com: 'It's heart-breaking. I feel guilty that this was going on 30ft away from our front door.'

The Wellers are set to be arraigned on October 27 on the assault, imprisonment and criminal mistreatment charges.

Jeffrey Weller also faces charges of strangling the 16-year-old girl and beating her, Vancouver police said.

It was the 16-year-old girl who slipped a note to an authority figure about the alleged abuse on October 5.

Sherry Hill, spokeswoman for the Children's Administration in the Washington Department of Social and Health Services said the note launched the ninth investigation of abuse.

This time, after interviewing the twins at the house on October 7, child welfare workers removed them from the home, along with 14 and 12-year-old sons from Jeffrey Weller's earlier marriage, a 10-year-old son from Sandra Weller's first marriage and a four-year-old boy from the Weller union.

Miss Hill said padlocks and chains secured food cabinets and the fridge and the two older children were underweight.

The twins were adopted as toddlers in California by Sandra Weller and her first husband.

They told police that 'for as long as they can recall, food in the home has been under lock and key and they are fed very small amounts of food an average of once a day,' according to a probable cause affidavit filed in Clark County Superior Court.

In the court papers, police describe a household where the home-schooled twins were isolated from family members, restricted from touching their parents or siblings and prohibited from using the common eating utensils.

The interior doorknob of the their bedroom was removed, the window was locked and an alarm was rigged to go off if they tried to leave the room.

There was no electricity inside the room; the fuses to the outlets had been removed and there were no working lights, police said.