The father of a Bright, Indiana teen, found alive on Tuesday in a creek bed after an intensive 20 hour search, now says that she and the other seven children living in his home have been removed by Children's Services. Erik Balsley says authorities showed up at the home around 6:30 p.m. Thursday night and took the kids, amid allegations of abuse.
Erik Balsley says he was told by officials that they were investigating claims that the children had been beaten with sticks. Three of the children, who are disabled, were sent to nursing homes, according to Erik Balsley. The other five children are with Children's Services.
The investigation began when one of the Balsley children, 16 year old Sonya, went missing on Monday night around 6 p.m. She was found on Tuesday at 2:15 p.m., sitting in a creek off Sneakville Road, about two miles from her home.
Sonya was taken to the hospital and treated for exposure. There, she told detectives that she'd been abducted by two men. She was treated and released back to the family home.
Local 12's Rich Jaffe is headed to Bright and will have more information on this story on Local 12 News at Noon.
Sonya's father told Local 12 News on Tuesday morning about a series of threats made over the course of several months. Erik Balsley said, "We had some issues with an adoptive child. We had to send him away. After we sent him away, Sonya said that he told her that if she told anything she knew about his life, that he had friends that would drag her into the woods and kill her and that they'd never find a body. And for about six days now we've had a countdown going in the backyard-you've got six days, you've got five days, and yesterday was the end of that countdown and they put a note in our garden to us that said waiting, waiting to make our move."
Sonya is developmentally disabled and acts more like a 12 year old, according to her family.
Local 12 has obtained records of calls made from the family to the Dearborn County 911 dispatch. Since March, the family has called officers to their home 18 times for reports of vandalized tires and windows, missing jewelry and baseball cards. Several of the calls report someone on the family's roof, knocking and making noise. In one instance, on July 31st, the family reported that someone wrote the words "She will pay" with black marker on the fireplace bricks on the outside of the house. Police tell us none of those calls were substantiated.
Dearborn County has not filed any charges in Sonya's disappearance and say they are unable to release a description of the alleged abductors.
