I can only hope she can receive the love and care she needs before she starts to view the world as a totally cruel place. We learn about the world in our early lives, much goes below the surface, and carries into our later lives. I hope she will find out there is more to the world than cruel vicious people.

I thought it was a lot longer than that, since neighbors who lived there for years did not know the girl existed.

How can humans behave so cruelly?

I cannot for the life of me imagine what this mother is going to say in her own defense, to defend the indefensible.

Nope. A bitch wouldn't treat her puppies this way. This woman isn't human, but she doesn't deserve the right to be compared to any animal. She's scum. And I hope I'm not offending scum.

My God, there are people in this world that make me wish things I feel guilty about. I have a whole list for this piece of trash.

Little girl, it gets better. I promise. It seems you already have one guardian angel. Whomever that anonymous voice was, thank you, thank you, thank you.

I feel bad about the very bad thoughts I am thinking for this "mother." These thoughts do not elevate me as a human being.

But...I am not as evolved as I wish I was. I'm glad I won't have to be dispensing justice in this case.

We think them and that little voice in our head just goes on a rant about how wrong we are to be so cruel. That's evolution. We learn from our irrational and violent thoughts. This woman obviously doesn't have that little voice in her head.

Sometimes, those "evil" thoughts kick that little voices ass, though. I'd call it a draw in this case.

but stories like this make me question my stance on the death penalty.

Right now, I just wish that I could reach out and hug her. She needs to know that that there are good people in the world, and I am sure that she needs to feel loved. There is nothing we can do to the mother that will make anything better for this child. There are a lot of ways in which we, as a society, can fail her. I hope that we don't. She deserves so much better.

The two sisters are apparently healthy. Persons with personality disorders practice scapegoating and that is what this sounds like to me. Mom needs a mental examination and treatment.

very common in abusive families where the parent has a personality disorder. Mental examination and treatment, however, doesn't work for most personality disorders. Personality disorder is not the same as mental illness - it rarely improves with treatment.

who is the woman’s current boyfriend. I am quite certain that this little girl’s treatment is related to her being the child from the mother’s previous relationship.

The boyfriend was not charged, so he might not have demanded or expected such treatment for this child, but just as Susan Smith killed her sons because she thought it would further her relationship with the man she was interested in (who did not want children), this mother might have felt that locking away this little girl and trying to negate her existence—both figuratively and very nearly literally—would win her “points” with her current boyfriend.

At least there was someone left to take the call and authority to enter the house.

handling issues like this for profit, will end up turning out like this? Or will it just be another statistic like the inmate who was deprived of medical attention and died three months short of parole.

The GOP leadership knows what their policies will lead to, the rank and file and teabaggers don't even have a clue. I don't know which is worse.

When mental illness knocks on their own door, they do their "praise God for making me humble" dance. Yeah, humble doesn't come with a Caddy insurance policy that covers mental health care, the best schools and nannies, etc. When it happens to the rest of us, it's not a "gift from God", they say it's a punishment.

Making a profit off of the tragic lives of the poor and minorities in this country is how they pay for their sins against humanity. The mental gymnastics they go through to force their God into their mold is astonishing.

...and I hope and pray she will get all the love and care she deserves, and can have a good life. It seems it may be hard to provide her with a strong psychological foundation, but miracles do happen. I think she needs an outpouring of love from many different sources, and of course strong and prolonged psychological therapy. (the physical care she needs goes without saying)

Also her sisters need love and prolonged attention and psychological therapy. Although they were not physically abused, they have been psychologically twisted by living in such a situation, and if they are not attended to for as long as it takes to un-twist them, they too will suffer -- and possibly their children as well.

This is a case that follows a pattern; it seems once or twice a year we hear about one of these cases, where one child was singled out for extreme abuse while the others live a "normal" life with the family. But there is nothing normal about it, and those children are damaged as well.

but, sometimes, it is very hard to stay that way.