A Kentucky couple were sentenced for the abuse of three children, one of whom, a witness said, grew so thirsty they sucked insulation from the walls.
Mary Hall and Jerome Norman entered blind guilty pleas to three counts of criminal abuse, according to court documents obtained by Oxygen.com, an arrangement that helped them avoid trial.
The judge imposed a 20-year sentence for each defendant, said Pike County Commonwealth’s Attorney Bill Slone, according to WYMT.
In 2018, Hall became the guardian of her sister’s children following a fatal car crash, according to WYMT.
Then, teachers began noticing bruising and strange hunger patterns on at least one of the kids.
“The teachers were looking to make sure he was OK and he was not OK.” Slone said, according to WYMT. “He was practically starving to death.”
In January 2025, Kentucky State Police responded to the couple's Pike County home, where one child showed “signs of torture,” according to a doctor cited in an arrest warrant viewed by Oxygen.com.
He had bruises on his body, chipped front teeth and a “busted” nose, per the warrant, and appeared pale, hungry and malnourished.
The child was denied meals as a form of discipline, per the warrant. The boy “gorges himself when he eats at school,” read the warrant. “Today he gorged himself until he got sick and vomited.”
Next, police found a room where the boy had been held—referred to as “the dark room”—which was locked from the outside, per the warrant.
The boy was taken from the home and later suffered cardiac arrest, noted the warrant.
The other children were forced to do manual labor and skip meals, according to WYMT, though one was particularly targeted, according to appointed guardian ad litem Amber Hunt.
“He sucked the insulation in the walls,” Hunt said in court, per WYMT, "to try to get water.”
An attorney for Norman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Oxygen.com.
Oxygen.com could not locate an attorney for Hall.
