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Justina Pelletier asks parents to “Hurry” to help her.
The anguish of a sick teenager continues well over a year after her abduction from her family. Justina Pelletier has been locked away in the care of Massachusetts DCF since February 2013, and a court has put her into the permanent custody of the state. In that time, her family has made allegations of her repeated abuse and "torture." Justina has been barred from making public statements and has begged for help in secret notes smuggled to her family. The young girl is not even allowed to sleep properly or take a shower in privacy, shocking new details reveal.

A struggle to survive

15-year-old Justina Pelletier's saga has been filled with setbacks and heartbreaks for the entire family. The Pelletiers have had to watch in prolonged agony as Justina's health diminished after being deprived of treatments for her mitochondrial disorder. She has since been heavily medicated with anti-psychotropic drugs, for a supposed mental illness that her family doesn't believe that she actually has.

Her father, Lou Pelletier, has been speaking out for some time about her mistreatment in the hands of DCF. He has decried the "behavioral modification" techniques employed on his daughter, the isolation, and abuse that he said rivals something out of North Korea.

"She's being allowed to be tortured in this country, I'll leave it at that," said Lou.

Justina has obviously suffered. She went from being an athletic teenager prior to her detainment to a crippled, dying patient. After her "treatments," she has lost control over her legs, and now requires a wheelchair. She has very weak motor functions in her upper body. Her hairline has receded and her family unanimously feels that she may not have long to live.

During a recent supervised visit - which included 2-5 DCF workers and police presence - Lou said Justina's shirt lifted slightly to reveal "severe dark red lines coming out from where her port was, from her cecostomy tube. And that's either a sign of poisoning, sepsis getting to the system, or some other critical thing. If we hadn't seen it and raised a red flag, she could be dead today."
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The Pelletiers discovered a serious septic wound that was left untreated on her stomach.
No freedom of speech

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Dangerous medicine: Justina Pelletier now has a receding hairline.
Justina - a 15-year-old teenager - has been kept isolated from the world for over a year. Besides the brief, police-supervised visits with her family, she has been barred from seeing her friends. She has been barred from making any unauthorized communications with the outside world. She has been barred from giving a public interview with the media, or with state legislators interested in helping her.

Her freedoms have been reduced to that of a prisoner; in some respects she has less freedom than inmates have.

Prohibited from writing letters to her family, she has been forced to write them notes in secret. She has to hide them from social workers and smuggle them to her family. Her family released one note as evidence of Justina's mistreatment.

"She's very intelligent and figures out ways to sneak us stuff," said her father. "She's been risking life and limb to get any bit of information to us."

Justina's note left the public even more outraged and disturbed at what may be going on behind closed doors.

"[They] do not let me sleep very much," Justina wrote.

"Hurry," she continued. "They hurt me all the time, push me all the time, and more."
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© Personhood USAA secret note that Justina Pelletier’s smuggled to her parents.
The Pelletiers were officially told not to speak about their daughter's case via a gag order. However, after about a year they could not contain their frustration and turned to the media for help. Risking jail time, Lou Pelletier came out and made many private details of the case known and the story became a national outrage. The judge declined to punish him, after the case gained such a high profile.

Continued abuse

The family recently discovered one of the incidents of "psychological abuse" that Justina has been put through. It seems that even her shower time is being invaded by state workers.

The family called 9-1-1 to report an incident of Justina being abused while showering, WCVB reported.

"My sister expressed that she was in the shower and she was harassed while she was naked taking a shower by a staff member that didn't even have privileges to be in the area of Justina's bathroom," said Justina's sister, Jennifer.

"Justina told the staff member that this is a private area," Jennifer continued. "The staff member ripped open the curtain and started yelling at my sister."

"I'm numb right now. I'm trying to stay strong, but it's not easy. It's absolutely disgusting," said her mother, Linda.


The agency, of course, denied the allegations. Although reviewing DCF's records shows a history of poor decisions and child abuse. After several children recently ended up dead in the DCF care, prominent voices have been calling for DCF Commissioner Olga Roche to resign. There seems to be a disturbing pattern of stealing children from loving parents, and giving children away to child-abusers.

The public must continue to create pressure for the release of Justina Pelletier, but also press for changes that will protect innocent families from the unchecked harassment and oppression at the hands of the state.