A Colorado mother-of-15 has been arrested after her husband’s body was found on her lawn and she was caught hiding behind a fake wall in her trailer – four years after being accused of child abuse and boiling puppies alive in front of her kids.
Martha Crouch, 57, was accused along with husband Timothy, 62, by their then-18-year-old daughter in 2019 of running a ‘house of horrors’ that led to charges of child abuse, cruelty to animals and obstructing an investigation.
Crouch took a deal to plead no contest to a fourth-degree felony count of attempted child abuse to avoid jail time on December 8, 2021 in Aztec, New Mexico.
Two days later, however, Crouch violated her two-year probation sentence and a warrant was put out for her arrest.
Nearly 20 months later, Huerfano County sheriffs found her after her husband was found dead in Walsenburg, Colorado, about 250 miles east of Aztec.
Martha Crouch, 57, was accused by her 18-year-old daughter in 2019 of running a ‘house of horrors’ that led to charges of child abuse, cruelty to animals and obstructing an investigation. She was found hiding in a wall Thursday after nearly two years on the run
Timothy only faced an obstruction charge at the time of the accusations, according to the Farmington Daily Times.
One of the couple’s 15 children – who is estranged from their parents – believed some of her siblings – including ones that are special needs – were still living with their father and being abused.
After authorities identified Crouch and realized his wife was still wanted for skipping out on probation, they returned to the residence with a warrant.
But before they went to the home one of the couple’s other children told police they were led to believe Martha had been dead for several years, according to KRDO.
This member of the family also let them know her 14-year-old sister had been missing for the past three years.
Upon arrival, based on a tip from a neighbor, they discovered a fake wall in the kitchen of the house where they found Martha and the missing daughter.
Crouch was arrested on the previous warrant for violating probation and slapped with new charges of misdemeanor child abuse and obstructing deputies.
She is being held in a county jail on $5,000 cash bond. Her next court date is yet to be determined.
It’s not clear if Crouch will be extradited to New Mexico to face the original warrant.
They finally found her after her husband Timothy (pictured), 62, was found dead in the town of Walsenburg, Colorado, a town about 250 miles east of Aztec
Investigators, having learned Martha Crouch was still wanted and having gotten a tip from a neighbor, returned to the residence with a warrant. Based on the tip, they discovered a fake wall in the kitchen where they found Crouch
DailyMail.com spoke to then-18-year-old Lizzie Crouch, who told of a childhood of cruelty and abuse by a mother who told her she was not her real mom and a father who told his children they were too stupid to go to school.
Both Martha and Timothy – a former reserve sheriff’s deputy – denied the charges at the time.
But Lizzy Crouch, the fourth-youngest of the 15, talked about how life inside the squalid ranch house was loveless and routinely cruel.
‘I’ll never be able to get the images out of my mind – seeing my mother dropping newborn puppies into boiling water and the smell of them cooking on the stove top,’ she said.
‘I used to wake up screaming, hearing the puppies in my nightmares, squealing as they boiled to death.
‘The only way I can stop having the dreams is by not sleeping.’
The last time Lizzy – a family nickname for her birth name of Suzannah – saw her mother boil dogs could not have been more horrific: it was her birthday.
‘It was the 5th of October 2018, my 17th birthday, and our dog, Lady had a litter of pups a few weeks earlier,’ she said.
‘I was in my bedroom and my mother came in and said, ‘I have a birthday present for you’.
‘I should have known something was up because she is not one to single me out to give me a birthday present.’
Lizzy said she followed her mother down the hallway into the kitchen and started to smell something that she said was ‘atrocious.’
‘I saw some of my brothers and sister lined up in the kitchen and on the stove top I saw a large silver pot, like a pressure cooker.
‘In it I could see baby puppies in the boiling water, at that time I wasn’t sure whether they were all dead or just in the process of dying. I heard whimpering from them.
‘It was awful. I was saddened but, I’m upset to say, not shocked as this wasn’t the first time – I had witnessed my mother killing puppies like this seven times before.
‘The sounds of them dying and crying is something I’ll never forget. After a few minutes, our mother ordered one of my brothers to take the pot out into the back yard and told the rest of us to go back to our bedrooms.
‘I went back and just bawled my eyes out, these puppies were only a week old, their eyes were still closed, they were the size of mice. Each one of them would fit into the palm of my hand.’
Witnessing the death of the puppies made Lizzy determined to escape; she ran off to live with her two older sisters, Alexandra and Anastaisea in Safford, Arizona. Their brother James is also supporting her.
In her last year living at home, the cruelty became too much: her mother beat Lizzy routinely with a soup ladle.
‘My mother would pick a sibling and torment them, it just so happens in the past year or so I was on the top of my mother’s list,’ she said.
‘If I disagreed with her, she would hit me with the ladle numerous times on my legs and lower extremities.
‘She made sure it was areas where the marks could be hidden with clothing in case someone from the outside ever saw us.’
‘House of Horrors’: The Crouch home in Aztec, New Mexico where mom-of-15 Martha Crouch allegedly terrorized her children by beating them and making them watch as she killed animals
Lizzy Crouch said that her mother made her watch in this kitchen as she boiled newborn puppies alive to mark her 17th birthday
The living room of the Crouch family home where Tim and Martha Crouch were arrested
One of the bedrooms in the ‘House of Horrors’ home where Martha and Tim Crouch allegedly abused their children
After Lizzy left her parents’ house in June of 2019 police were able to photograph evidence of bruising on Lizzy’s body, according to Martha Crouch’s arrest affidavit.
Tears welling in her eyes, Lizzy said, ‘They should have never had one kid, let alone 15. I don’t think they ever loved any of my siblings. I’ve never felt they loved me growing up.’
Lizzy remembers when she was just four, she asked her mother if she loved her.
‘My mother looked me in the eyes and said she didn’t love me and said she wasn’t my mother, even though she is listed on my birth certificate as my mom,’ she recounted.
Her sisters with whom she is now living have previously told of their own ordeals as they grew up, and the family moved between Missouri, Alaska, Kansas and Montana, then finally New Mexico.
Alexandria told DailyMail.com how when she became pregnant as a 14-year-old, Martha beat her so viciously she miscarried, while her sister Anastaisea was chained up to her bed for three years starting when she was eight to make her lose weight.
Anastaisea also said she saw her mother kill six newborn kittens by beating them to death with a hammer.
The 11 adult Crouch children were not united in their version of their childhoods.
Brother Timothy Joseph ‘TJ’ Crouch, 32 and Samuel Crouch, 22, have previously told DailyMail.com that their parents were kind and loving.
TJ Crouch was later charged with three felony counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon when he threatened to shoot three of his brothers over an argument.
Their now deceased father vehemently denied the claims his children were ever chained up as prisoners at the time.
Timothy said: ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. A ‘fat chain’? We never chained up any of our children.
‘The daughter who made that false allegation was a bit chubby and we wouldn’t allow her to eat desserts. It was for her own good, but we never chained her up to anything.’
Anastaisea previously told DailyMail.com a version of her childhood which paralleled Lizzy’s.
‘I was a chunky kid and if I weighed more than my older siblings she’d get mad at me and hit me. One day, when I was eight years old, she chained me to my bed with a heavy-duty dog chain so she could control what I ate,’ she said.
‘It was about ten feet long. One end was attached to a bedpost and the other was wrapped around my ankle and fastened with a key code padlock.
Family: Lizzy Crouch, her sister Anastaisea and brother James are now supporting each other in Arizona. Lizzy tells DailyMailTV she will give evidence against their father
United:Martha Crouch’s daughters Alexandria Tanner, 28 (left) and Anastaisea Crouch, 27 (right)
Timothy Joseph ‘TJ’ Crouch, 32, (left) and Samuel Crouch, 22, (right) are supporting their parents Timothy and Martha. TJ was charged on May 31 on three charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon at the Crouch family home. It was this arrest that launched the child welfare probe into the Crouch family and led to their 17-year-old sister making allegations against their parents
‘We love animals!’ Timothy Crouch, at his home in Aztec, New Mexico, with English rat terrier Valentine, denies his wife committed child abuse or cruelty to animals
‘This went on for about three years. On occasion my mother would unchain me to weigh me or if people came over to the house or our family had to go somewhere.
‘One time, when she weighed me, I was one pound more than my older sibling and she beat me. I had to go to the bathroom in a bucket and I could only shower about once a month.’
The cruelty was not only physical. Education wasn’t a top priority for Lizzy’s parents, saying she and her siblings were ‘too stupid to go to school.’
The last grade Lizzy could remember attending for any measurable length of time was 8th grade, when she was 13.
‘I attended the school for about one month before my parents pulled me out of there and we all moved.
‘I would attend various grades for a few days or weeks at a time. I’ve never completed a grade in my life.’
Lizzy said that she was learning to read and had made vast improvements since escaping her parents, with hopes to one day become a child psychologist.
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