Young boy's siblings reveal how they saved him from starvation in 'Harry Potter' room
WARNING – DISTRESSING IMAGES: Siblings of a five-year-old who was starved, locked in a cupboard and forced to wear a nappy have revealed they slipped him food to help keep him alive.
Tammi Bleimeyer forced her stepson Jordan, now nine, to sleep in the ‘Harry Potter room’ of her Houston, Texas, home – a crawlspace with exposed nails and wiring and a solitary mattress.
When he was found he was ‘close to death’ and compared to a Holocaust survivor.
His siblings Allison and Cody have now recalled the moment they opened the cupboard and called police, saving his life.
Cody said he “freaked out” when he one day opened the closet and saw the state Jordan was in.
“His face was all caved in, bruises all over, marks on him,” he told The Sun Online.
“His mouth was foaming. I have never in my life seen anything as bad as that.
“If we hadn’t got him out that day I don’t think he would have survived.”
Cody said he handed Jordan to his sister Allison to comfort him while he called police.
“It was like I wasn’t holding anything – he was so light – it wasn’t like holding a kid at all. He was so, so white and his cheeks were sunken and he smelled terrible – it was just awful,” Allison said.
Boy weighed just 13kgs
Before the pair summoned up the courage to rescue Jordan, she and Cody would have to sneak bread to their younger brother behind their mother’s back.
Cody said on the day of the rescue in 2014, his parents were furious that he had opened the closet door without their permission.
He said once he had seen the awful conditions the boy was being kept in, he had to save the youngster.
Doctors say he was close to death when he was rescued and weighed just 13kgs. They compared his condition to that of a Holocaust survivor.
The authorities first became aware of the abuse after her 16-year-old son reported her in March 2014.
Tammi, who was six months pregnant at the time, fled, taking Jordan with her.
She was eventually tracked down to a nearby motel.
Jordan was covered in bruises when he was recovered by the police.
One expert told the court that Jordan had suffered “severe physical abuse and habitual starvation” and was close to death.
He was only allowed to eat one slice of bread every day – which could be taken away if he did not eat it fast enough – and could not eat with the rest of the family.
Jordan was also put on drugs by his parents to stop him complaining if guests came to the house in spring.
Jordan’s dad Bradley Bleimeyer was found guilty of the same charges as his wife in 2016 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The stepmother was sentenced to 28 years in prison following a 10-day trial and two of her biological children took to the stand to testify against her.
One of them told the court that he would never ‘be the same emotionally’ because of the trauma of the abuse.
Jordan is now aged nine and has been reunited with his biological mother.
