Two Maryland teenagers were arrested few hours ago for torturing a 16-year-old autistic boy with a knife and forcing him to engage in a sex act with an animal. Lauren Bush, 17, and her 15-year-old accomplice captured their heinous act on camera and were arrested by the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff Tim Cameron described the case as the worst he has ever seen and a shock to the rural Maryland County.
The suspects recorded themselves assaulting their mentally challenged victim by pointing a knife to his throat, making him walk across a frozen pond and not helping when he fell in multiple times and kicking him in the groin, Cameron said.
Perhaps the most appalling charge was a sexual act they coerced him into performing.
“The victim was forced to masturbate and then copulate with a family pet,” he said. “It’s beyond comprehension.”
These acts occurred between December and March, he said, adding the girls knew the victim in the rural Mechanicsville, Md., town.
The victim did sustain some injuries from the suspects’ torture, Cameron said, but he did not know the extent of it.
The suspects were arrested after one suspect’s mother found the video on her daughter’s phone and alerted the school resource officer at the Chopticon High School where they both attended, Cameron said.
Authorities are trying to determine why the girls decided to film these acts and if they showed it to anyone or shared it on social media, Cameron said.
“I’m hoping our investigation will get some answers. It’s hard to fathom,” he said. “This is heinous and shocking. Why would someone show such hatred and evil to a person?”
They were charged with assault, soliciting a subject in the production of child pornography, and false imprisonment, Cameron said adding more charges may be filed.
“We’re a close knit community and everyone is shocked here,” he said. “Like everyone else in town I’m hoping to know the rest of the story.”
Bush will be charged as an adult and the other suspect will be charged as a juvenile, Cameron said. Bush has been released but the 15-year-old is still at a juvenile detention facility, he said.
