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[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
A West Virginia man has been arrested and charged with more than 150 crimes (!) for what prosecutors say was a decade of abuse of his own daughter — culminating in her giving birth to three children throughout those years. Seriously.
According to prosecutors in Raleigh County, West Virginia, Kenneth Ray Cook (pictured above, in his mugshot) allegedly began a non-consensual sexual relationship with his daughter back in 2012. She was just nine years old at the time. He would have been 31. The sexual abuse continued for a little more than a decade, until just after her 21st birthday. And during that time, she allegedly gave birth to THREE kids by Cook.
He was first arrested and charged with child neglect back in April. This story is only coming to light now, though, because he was indicted on even more charges earlier this month, and the scope of the crimes involved is absolutely staggering.
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According to local West Virginia news outlet WVVA, Cook faces 156 total charges following this month’s indictment. They include multiple incest allegations, the most recent of which reportedly occurred in July of last year. However, most of the charges deal with how he treated the offspring of his incest.
In total, those charges cover one count of child neglect resulting in injury, one count of sexual assault in the third degree, two counts of sexual abuse by a parent or guardian, three counts of incest (officially listed in the court docs as being “engaged in sexual intercourse or sexual intrusion with a family member,” ugh), and 149 counts of gross neglect of child creating a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury.
What. The. F**k.
So, the 149 neglect counts were the key to unraveling what happened. According to court records seen by People and others, this whole thing began to unravel last August when one of the three children birthed by Cook’s daughter was discovered in a neglectful condition. The child was just one year old at the time.
Officials from the Raleigh County Sheriff’s Office began to investigate after the discovery. Quickly, they uncovered the existence — and then, the alleged neglect — of the other two children birthed by Cook’s own daughter. It’s not clear how old those kids even are, as they were only discovered during the investigation.
Cook is currently being held behind bars on a $500,000 bond at the Southern Regional Jail in the small town of Clifftop. He will be formally arraigned in court next Tuesday.
What an awful situation. We can’t begin to imagine the life his daughter must have lived for all those years — or that of those three children. Ugh.
If you have sincere cause to suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence and would like to learn about resources, consider checking out https://www.rainn.org/resources.
[Image via West Virginia Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation]
