FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — More than two years after Margate police began looking for her, Denaria Graham is finally behind bars.
The 24-year-old, booked into the Broward Main Jail in Fort Lauderdale, is the sixth member of her family to be arrested ― and the fifth to be directly implicated ― in connection with what police said was years of torture of her cousin, who was 15 when the first arrests were made in October 2023.
Those arrests, of guardians Latricia Elizabeth Crawley and Benjamin Deztuan Lockett, came after the teenager reported the abuse to an online instructor, who then informed Margate police, authorities said.
Authorities said Crawley, 49, and Lockett, 46, the girl’s aunt and uncle respectively, subjected her to various forms of torture in a home in the 200 block of Northwest 79th Terrace, including beatings, oiling the girl’s knees and forcing her to kneel on rice, binding her with rope, throwing boiling water on her and pouring cold water on her while she slept, “just to see her wake up.”
Amended charging documents also state that Crawley inserted thumbtacks through the girl’s fingernails, used a stapler gun on her back, pepper-sprayed her face and rubbed a “mixture of Epsom salt and conditioner” in the girl’s eyes.
The girl, police said, was caged in two different closets and was forced to urinate and defecate in a bucket.
Officers said when they found her, she showed multiple signs of malnutrition and starvation.
Other arrests followed, including the girl’s sister, Shankyria Clayton, and another cousin, Treaunshae Gibbons.
Clayton, 23, is accused of being aware of the abuse and not reporting it — and joining her aunt, uncle and cousin in caging and starving her sister.
Gibbons, 32, is accused of being aware of the abuse and not reporting it ― despite working for a child abuse nonprofit at the time. Police said she used her knowledge of the system to help Crawley deal with investigators, acting as a “middleman.”
Police said the girl was also living with a relative who was a sex offender. Horace Crawley, then 74, was arrested in November 2023 on two counts pertaining to failing to re-register. He has never been implicated in the abuse, however.
Broward court records show he pleaded no contest on the registry-related charges and received probation.
Graham is now the latest arrest in the case.
According to court proceedings, she was aware police were looking for her and turned herself in on Wednesday.
Authorities said one of the closets the victim was caged in was in Graham’s room while she was living with the family and Graham, tasked at times with watching the victim, would only let her out of the closet to defecate.
She is now facing charges of aggravated child abuse, child neglect and failing to report child abuse.
In court on Thursday, a judge ordered Graham held without bond.
A hearing in the case for the other relatives is scheduled for Sept. 14 and it’s believed that Graham will be part of that as well.
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