Kelly Mennig, Rachel Mennig and Rebecca Mennig accused of forcing NJ teen girl to wear shock collar for 3 years as form of punishment at Stratford residence.
How a teen girl finally found the courage to bring her abusers to justice …
NJ authorities have arrested three women accused of forcing a 13 year old girl to wear a shock collar and starving her over the course of three years at a Stratford home.
On March 1, the victim reportedly rang a neighbor’s doorbell ‘repeatedly’ pleading for help. The neighbor, Karen Villec, told WPVI that she answered the door and was met by the girl — who handed her a vibrating dog collar.
‘I go, ‘Is your dog loose?’ She said, ‘No, they shocked me! They shocked me!’ And she put up her neck and I saw the two marks from the dog collar,’ Villec recalled.
Villec tried to comfort the girl as her husband called 911.
The girl, who was hospitalized, told police that Kelly Mennig, 42, Rachel Mennig, 20, and Rebecca Mennig, 22, started putting the collar on her for ‘being bad’ in October 2018. Camden County prosecutors said someone who also lived in the home corroborated her story, according to NJ.com.
Subjected to ongoing abuse
Shock collars are a controversial training tool for dogs — delivering varying degrees of electronic stimulation by their handlers via remote control as punishment for misbehavior.
The Mennigs are also accused of withholding food and clothing from the girl over the course of three years. Upon their arrest, Kelly and Rebecca Mennig denied using the shock collar on the victim.
Kelly, Rebecca, and Rachel Mennig were charged with aggravated assault, child abuse, and neglect.
Authorities have not disclosed how the Mennigs and the victim are related, nor the three womens relation to each other. The girl has since been removed from the home according to the Division of Child Protection and Permanency.
The Mennigs are due in court on Friday.
