A Pennsylvania woman who is accused of forcing the girl she’d adopted to eat used cat litter was charged this week with multiple felony counts of endangering the welfare of a child and one misdemeanor count each of simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Rana Cooper, 46, of Washington County, Pa., repeatedly abused the child she adopted in 2008 at age 9, attempting on one occasion to sew the child’s mouth shut with a needle and thread and and on several others threatening to gouge her eyes out, state police said in a criminal complaint. A list of sixteen instances of abuse alleged by the child, who is now 16, takes up an entire page.
When Cooper tried to sew the girl’s mouth shut, she pierced her lower lip, but stopped after the initial puncture. Her attempts to gouge the child’s eyes out resulted in broken blood vessels.
When the child was inattentive, Cooper allegedly jammed a cotton swab into the girl’s ear until it bled. The girl told police she cannot hear well out of her left ear. She further maintains that she was forced to stand in the corner with drywall screws under her feet and to scrape her finger around the rim of the toilet and eat what was on her finger.
Cpl. Robert Copechal, who led the police investigation, described Cooper as “completely cooperative.” Last September, Cooper submitted to a polygraph examination and in a written statement admitted to submerging the child’s head underwater for up to 10 seconds. Beyond that, she and other members of her family insist the bulk of the allegations are false.
Cooper and her husband, Richard, voluntarily ceded custody of the girl to Children and Youth Services.
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