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2 charged with abuse of girl, 9

The girl weighed 42 pounds when police found her, hands bound and locked away.

By ABHI RAGHUNATHAN and MOISES MENDOZA
Published August 3, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - The photographs show an emaciated 9 year-old girl, so shrunken that her skin stretches tightly over her spinal cord and rib cage as though she were a famine victim.

Even though she was 9, police say the girl weighed just 42 pounds when they removed her from an apartment June 30. The girl suffered other abuse, police say. She had her hands bound behind her with a white cord, was locked in a bedroom all day and forced to wear a diaper that went unchanged for hours.

St. Petersburg police arrested the girl's mother and the mother's partner Wednesday on charges of aggravated child abuse. Melissa Samoraj, 27, the girl's mother, and Raymond LaFountain, 31, Samoraj's partner, each face a charge of aggravated child abuse.

"It's a very disturbing case," said Detective Joe DeLuca. "You see very few like this."

Driver's license records show LaFountain is a male. But jail records listed LaFountain as a female. Police say LaFountain's gender is uncertain, and that he once went by the name Renee.

"I kick myself every day that I didn't know this was happening," said James Hays, 28, the girl's father and a Lecanto resident. He says he wants custody of his daughter.

"If I had known about any of these abuse allegations I would have done something right away," he said. "I always thought my daughter was in a good home."

Hays, a registered sex offender himself, convicted of lewd and lascivious assault of a child under 16, said authorities had investigated several abuse allegations involving his daughter in recent years, but that he wasn't notified of them until recently.

Police say they're not sure how long the couple has been abusing the 9 year-old girl. DeLuca said the couple didn't offer an explanation for the abuse.

But Beverly Hutton, a former landlord of the couple when they lived in Daytona Beach about five years ago, said she remembered them keeping their little girl locked up in a bedroom back then.

"She was made to stay in the bedroom," Hutton said. "She'd be in there crying, saying, 'Don't do anything, Ray. I'll be good, Ray.' "

Hutton said she began eviction proceedings against the couple because they routinely failed to pay the rent, but dropped the matter after they moved out. She said the bedroom was often locked, and she could hear the girl's cries, but couldn't see her.

It is unclear when LaFountain and Samoraj arrived in St. Petersburg, but the police found them living with the girl in an apartment building in the 7000 block of 4th Street N where neighbors say the children play together.

While several neighbors recalled seeing LaFountain and Samoraj take walks together, they never saw the girl.

"The little girl was never with them," said Patricia Antequera, 35.

Police say a tipster called a child abuse hotline to report the family. The Department of Children and Families contacted police, who began investigating the suspected abuse.

What the authorities found stunned them. DeLuca said the couple refused to change the girl's diaper for long periods of time, making her sleep in it and refusing to let her take it off.

The girl currently lives with her grandparents, police said. In just a month, she gained 25 pounds.

"She's doing well now," DeLuca said.

Times researcher Caryn Baird and reporter Andrea Chang contributed to this report. Abhi Raghunathan can be reached at araghunathan@sptimes.com or 727 893-8472.

[Last modified August 3, 2006, 01:45:03]