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Dulce Crystal Bazan Castillo and Auturo Bazan-Perez
A Pontiac couple being held without bond in the Oakland County Jail are accused of starving their two boys, ages 9 and 11. The older one weighed 43 pounds and the younger one 33 pounds, the Oakland County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday.
Arturo Bazan-Perez, 43, and his wife, Dulce Crystal Bazan Castillo, 42, along with their older son, Carlos Bazan-Hernandez, 24, who allegedly acted as the disciplinarian, face charges of first-degree child abuse and two counts of torture, the Sheriff's Office said.
The investigation began Nov. 17 when sheriff's deputies went to the hospital, responding to a report of a 9-year-old boy whose parents said was suffering from a medical condition. When they arrived, they found the boy was underweight, had bruises, and was not breathing, and CPR was in progress, authorities said.
He was intubated and airlifted to another hospital for specialized care.
Authorities said the two boys had been eating two meals a day at school, but the father unenrolled them in September, saying the family was moving to Mexico or another state.
After being pulled from school, the boys had sporadic meals, mostly rice. They were confined to their bedroom, where the windows were screwed shut and painted so they couldn't look out.
Two other children living at the home—a 1-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl—were fed a normal diet and appeared to be healthy, the Oakland County Sheriff's Office said. They were removed from the home last Friday.
It's not the first high-profile case this year of suspected child abuse in Pontiac.
Earlier this year, 34-year-old mom Kelli Bryant, accused of leaving her three children alone in “absolute squalor” in a house in Pontiac, was charged with three counts of first-degree child abuse.
The children—two girls, 12 and 13, and a boy, 15—survived only on weekly drop-offs of prepared food the mother or a stranger left on the front porch. The children had not been to school since being abandoned either in 2020 or 2021, authorities said.
