Imagine, your kids want to have a sleep over, at their friend’s house. That nice couple down the street have kids the same age as yours. They play together, go to school together, what’s the problem, right?
So, you pack your kids up, send a bag of snacks, a sleeping bag and drop them off for a night of fun with friends. The only problem is, they don’t come back home, to you, the same as when the left.
Police fear that a Santa Clarita couple accused of molesting eight children aged three to 17 over the past 15 years may have more victims and are asking them to come forward.
Jacqueline Wadsworth, 32, and Francisco Avendano, 42, were arrested March 31 on suspicion of abusing two children under the age of 14, according to The Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
Since then, police say they have identified six more possible victims in what they say is ‘a horrific story’ – and are hoping that others will be brought forward.
Couple: Police say the pair traveled around the Santa Clarita Valley area and believe other victims have still yet to come forward. Between them, they are accused of abusing children between three and 17 years of age
Sergeant Brian Hudson of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Special Victims Bureau told the Signal, ‘Our fear is that there are other children victimized by this couple. It’s a horrific story.’
Police say they have uncovered abuses of both boys and girls by Avendano stretching back as far as 2001. The victims ages are between three and 17, ABC 7 said.
The station added that this investigation began after a 12-year-old boy told his mother he was abused during a sleepover at the couple’s home.
Avendano and Wadsworth, who have children together, are alleged to have ‘typically’ instigated abuses at such sleepovers.
They also say that the suspects lived in various locations around the Santa Clarita Valley over the 15-year period, and are concerned they might have assaulted children across the area within the last ten years.
‘They lived in Canyon Country at a mobile home park on the 30000 block of Sand Canyon Road, and they’ve lived in Castaic,’ Hudson told the Signal.
‘(Avendano) would befriend neighborhood children and the friends of family members, and then sexually assault them.’
He told ABC 7: ‘Many times they’ve threatened the kids that “If you say something, I will harm you, I will harm your family.”‘
