Child abuse survivor reveals her parents stapled her EYELIDS open

A 38-year-old mother has opened up about how she overcame years of horrific childhood abuse at the hands of her parents – three decades after they were sentenced to life in prison for the shocking torture they inflicted upon their children. 

Heather Trim, who now lives in Michigan, shared that she and four of her six siblings were routinely subjected to disgusting acts of violence – recalling how they starved her, beat her, sexually abused her, and once even stapled her eyelids open when she refused to watch a scary movie.

Now, 30 years after her parents Gerald and Pamela Platz were handed down life sentences, Heather is speaking out about the horrors she endured before being saved by a neighbor, who phoned the police after spotting one of the siblings alone, naked, and bleeding from a painful wound.  

By sharing her experiences, Heather hopes that she can show others that it is possible to forge a happy life, not matter what extreme trauma you have endured in the past.  

Speaking out: Childhood abuse survivor Heather Trim, now 38, is speaking out about the horrific torture she endured at the hands of her parents, Gerald and Pamela Platz

Struggle: Heather (pictured at age nine), from Michigan, says her parents beat her, raped her, starved her – and on one occasion even stapled her eyelids open 

Before being rescued by the police, Heather spent six years living in her parents’ house of horrors, which was secreted away in the middle of woodland – allowing them to keep their children, and the abuse they endured, hidden from the world.   

Heather recalled how Gerald and Pamela once stapled her eyelids open when she refused to watch a scary movie, and locked her in a basement without food or water.

Stabbed and beaten with rocks, she said she was sexually abused by both parents – claiming that her mother was even ‘jealous’ of Gerald’s abuse of their only daughter.

She said her sick parents defecated on her and stuck objects in her ears, damaging her hearing. 

Without schooling, she had no idea what police officers were, until she was rescued from the abusive home, in 1989. 

‘I remember seeing a scary movie and refusing to watch it, and in my refusal, my eyes were forced to stay open by stapling the lids open,’ Heather revealed. ‘I don’t remember the hurt of getting stapled but I remember running my fingers over them and trying to take them out when my parents passed out. 

‘I knew of nothing else but what they were teaching me.

‘I didn’t go to school, I didn’t meet anyone, I didn’t know what police were or that anyone was around to help me. I didn’t know I needed saving.’ 

The Platz parents were addicted to inhalant drugs and alcohol, meaning Heather was born with fetal alcohol syndrome, she said.

For the first six years of her life, between 1983 and 1989, she said she was stabbed, hit with rocks and had items poked in her ears that scarred her ear drums.

‘I have had nearly every bone broken in my body,’ Heather said. ‘I remember being locked in a basement for a very long time without food or water.

‘Torture’: Her parents were sentenced to life in prison in 1990, after the police were called to their house by a concerned neighbor and uncovered the horrific abuse they’d inflicted 

‘I remember being peed and pooped on, spit at and being forced to do things with those bodily fluids.’

She said she remembers being sexually molested, with Gerald raping her multiple times and Pamela hurting her sexually with objects.

She believes this was out of jealousy as it would mean she would be too bloody for her husband to touch her.

She said: ‘When I think back to it, it is all fragmented and jumbled up.

‘For example, I remember being hit in the face with a rock. I remember spending many long hours locked in a basement.

‘I was put there most of the time by Pamela, who I believe was jealous of all the attention Gerald would show me.

‘I remember pain and hurt.’

Heather did not attend school until she was taken away from her parents, and didn’t know how to speak English properly.

‘I spoke like someone heavy on drugs or alcohol,’ said Heather.

The Platzs’ house was in the middle of some woods with no other houses in sight from any of the windows.

When they did have an occasional visitor, she were forced to hide upstairs. 

‘I think Pamela and Gerald were so convincing in their manipulations, that neighbors just ignored them,’ she said. ‘Looked upon like white trash and avoided.’

In September 1989, a neighbor saw Heather’s brother Byron, then about four years old, running naked outside their house in Alpena.

Blood was gushing from his back as he was being beaten with a board with nails on it, and the neighbor called Traverse City police who placed the children into foster care, she said.

Inspiration: Heather welcomed her own daughter, Kayla (pictured), now 16, and says that her birth helped to see what kind of person she wanted to become 

Heather said: ‘No one knew the extent of the case, at the time everyone believed it was just a child abuse story until I came back to my foster care home, after having an unsupervised visit with my biological parents.

‘While giving me a bath, they saw the evidence of sexual abuse and bruising beginning to show on arms and legs.’

Visitation rights were rescinded and the Platzs’ trial started soon after at Emmet County Circuit Court.

Prosecutors said Gerald Platz allegedly cut his victim’s arms with broken glass and stapled their skin and defecated on their faces.

Authorities said the abuse occurred between 1986 and 1988.

According to court reports, the Platzs told court officials they were themselves victims of abuse in families with alcoholism problems.

Judge Richard Pajtas sentenced them on a total of eight abuse and rape charges against heather and others, on August 20, 1990.

Twelve other counts were dropped when the couple pleaded no contest.

The Platzs were sentenced to life in prison for a total of eight abuse and rape charges relating to Heather and others, according to reports from the time.

While Gerald died alone in prison, Pamela’s most recent prison ‘mugshot’ shows her, now age 59, smiling at the camera, with piercing blue eyes, and her grey hair in a neat side sweep. 

In sentencing the judge said: ‘Gerald Platz has subjected his family to a life of isolation, incest and horrible acts of sexual abuse that can only be described as barbaric, shocking and disgusting.’

Prosecutor Diane Smith said the Platzs ‘damaged these children for life’.

According to report, she added: ‘These parents robbed their children of their innocence. Instead of watching videos of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, they were subjected to “Debby Does Dallas.”‘

Meaningful: ‘I knew, seeing her face, I finally understood what unconditional love looked and felt like, and I knew from that moment on the kind of person I wanted to be,’ Heather said

Initially, Heather was placed in care with Byron, but their trauma meant they acted inappropriately towards each other, so they were separated.

Heather said her younger brother Byron received the worst of the violence.

Tragically, Byron went missing in November 2017 until his body was found the following March in the Chippewa River in Dunn County, Wisconsin.

Heather said: ‘He couldn’t fight those extremely dark demons any longer, and it claimed his life.’

She would hear others speaking ill of her parents but it confused her as the little girl still didn’t understand what they had done wrong.

She said: ‘I just thought of them as someone much older than me that gave me food sometimes when I was very hungry, and sometimes would watch TV with us.

Upset: Heather’s brother Byron (pictured) – who endured the worst abuse – disappeared in November 2017 and his body was found in March 2018, with his sister explaining that he ‘couldn’t fight his demons any longer’

‘I didn’t know what else to compare it to at that age, so just viewed them as people who took care of me.’

Eventually she began to realize that her foster parents didn’t hurt her like her birth parents did and that there was ‘more to life than just pain.’

She spent a year-and-a-half in foster care before being adopted, and went to therapy until she was about 15 when she was kicked out due to ongoing behavioral problems.

When she got into trouble when she was 18 she began to think she was turning into her parents and started to turn her life around. She had her daughter, now 16, which finally helped her move on from her childhood trauma.

Heather said: ‘The minute I saw her newborn face, it woke me up too. I wanted her to never feel anything that I had personally gone through in my life.

‘I knew, seeing her face, I finally understood what unconditional love looked and felt like, and I knew from that moment on the kind of person I wanted to be.’

Heather’s friends and children don’t know much about Heather’s upbringing, but are supportive of her continued fight with PTSD.

‘I broke the chain of becoming like my parents, by being a mother myself and teaching my children unconditional love, a happy healthy life,’ she said.

‘No one taught me what to do – I just knew who I didn’t want to be, like them. The fact that I am alive gives me strength. I survived something that should have killed me. 

‘No matter what a person goes through in their life, they have to decide on the kind of person they want to be. No one or no memory has power over you, unless you let it.

‘Every day that you successfully live without repeating the trauma or hurt on others, is a day to celebrate.’

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk