Features

The Associated Press 

BURBANK – Investigators are surprised that a 12-year-old girl who lived in a “slave setting” for at least two years survived the abuse. 

Police, who were responding to a call, found the girl Dec. 2 hiding near the home where she lived with Erlinda Reyes Allan, 37, and Marcus Allan, 42, said Burbank Police Lt. Don Brown. 

Brown said the girl was so malnourished that she appeared to be 7 or 8 years old. This was the worst child abuse case Brown said he had seen in his 40 years on the force. 

“There was not a part of her body that was not bruised, cut or split open,” he said. “When we see people in this condition, they are usually dead.” 

The Burbank couple was arrested and charged earlier this week with one count each of torture, child abuse and corporal injury to a child.  

Bail is set at $630,000 for Marcus Allan and $600,000 for Erlinda Allan, who are both scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 4 in Burbank Superior Court. 

If convicted, Brown said, the couple could be sentenced to at least 20 years in prison. 

Police said neighbors and school officials called child abuse investigators twice before to report that the girl had not been at school.  

But investigators said she was never found at home because they later learned the couple — who would tell officers the girl was in the Philippines with relatives — ordered the girl to flee the house and hide. 

According to Immigration and Naturalization Service officials, Erlinda Allan is an illegal immigrant who came from the Philippines in 1977 on a visitor’s visa. 

Authorities are trying to determine the relationship between the girl and the couple.  

Three teen-agers, two girls and a boy, also lived at the home, but police weren’t sure of their relationship to the adults or the girl. 

Authorities said the teen-age children were also abused. 

All four remained Friday in the custody of the county Department of Children and Family Services.