Only 4 years in jail for this! ( Archived) (15)

maryrachelle: http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Claytons-Survival-Story

In response to: Now 19 years old, Clayton says he doesn't remember the first time he was put in the closet. Police believe he was locked in there for three to six months. "I remember being in there and just wondering, 'When am I going to get out'" he says. "It seemed like forever, an eternity, that I was in there."

Before his father met his stepmother, Clayton says he had a good relationship with his dad. "We were great [as father and son], just like any other normal dad and son," he says.

Clayton says his biological mother wasn't—and still isn't—in the picture. "She dropped me off, told me she'd be back," he says. "She never did. She was heavily into drugs. Never really was a mother."
While living with his father and stepmother, Clayton says he was never allowed to play with other children. "I was in [the closet] quite a bit," he says. "Very seldom was I let out. When I was, I was locked in my bedroom."

Clayton says he knew other kids weren't treated like he was and used to ask himself why he was locked away. "I wondered why I couldn't be a normal child. Why I had to be confined and what I did wrong," he says. "They never specifically explained it to me. They just punished me." When Clayton yelled for help, he says Joseph and Carmen punished him by pouring dish soap in his mouth. "They put dish soap in my mouth and just left it. They wouldn't rinse it out. I just had to endure that taste," he says. "I got a really bad rash on my neck from the dish soap. It'd run out of my mouth and they'd just leave it there while I was in the closet."

To this day, Clayton can't stand the smell of dish soap. Oldies music also triggers bad memories. "When I was screaming to get out of the closet, they'd blare it so they just drowned out my voice," he says. "They didn't want to hear me."

Watch Clayton confront his past through photos for the first time

Clayton also remembers going hungry. "I'd tear pieces of the paper bags off the floor and try to eat them," he says.

When he was fed, Clayton says Joseph and Carmen made it as unappetizing as possible. "Anything from hot dogs to hot sauce," he says. "As much they could feed me that would be painful."

Onlyguy: That was very disturbing. I hadn’t heard about this before. Isn’t it just terrible what some people can do and doing it to their own child is just incomprehensible. The poor kid was abandoned by his mother and then treated this way by his own father and stepmother.
I think the least that could have happened was that they both do the full time they got but the law is the law, though it should be reviewed. A maximum of 4 years for such a crime just doesn’t sound right.
Luckily the cop took that extra step which too often people don’t do not to get involved.