A Missouri mother and her boyfriend are accused of severe child abuse, including shooting their 13- and 14-year-old sons with BB guns while they were locked in a chicken coop.
Chantel Hayford i Jerry Meneesboth from Potosí, are accused of 24 crimes related to the “denunciations of severe abuse and neglect,” the Washington County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release on Wednesday, January 14.
Hayford, 38, and Menees, whose age was redacted, were arrested Tuesday, Jan. 13, on charges including kidnapping, endangering the welfare of a child, abuse or neglect of a child and domestic battery, according to the agency.
As part of an “ongoing pattern of abuse,” the couple is accused of hosting “fight nights” where the children were forced to fight each other, beat Hayford’s children and give them drugs and alcohol, according to the sheriff’s office and court documents seen by Us Weekly.
Hayford also “traded” custody of her children, as well as her 17-year-old daughter, to another adult in exchange for a phone and phone plan in July 2025, according to a probable cause statement. The adult is referred to as “the guardian” in the presentation.
A Missouri couple has been arrested after police discovered they were living in a filthy home with their four malnourished foster children. Stacey Laura-Louise Castleman and Erik Aleister Castleman were arrested on December 27, 2025 and charged with multiple counts of child abuse or neglect and endangering the welfare of a (…)
“(Hayford) signed a power of attorney and had the children moved to the guardian’s home under that agreement,” the statement said.
An attorney for Hayford could not immediately be reached for comment. Information on legal representation for Menees was not immediately available.
In December, the sheriff’s office began investigating the couple after the state Division of Family Services alerted them to the abuse allegations.
During an interview with Hayford’s 14-year-old son at a child advocacy center, the teenager said his mother and Menees locked him and his brother in a chicken coop by locking him up, then shot them both with a BB gun, according to the probable cause statement. The teenager said he was 13 when this happened. The teenager also accused Menees of pointing a real gun at him and threatening to “blow his brains out”.
The boy detailed that Menees regularly physically abused him by punching and slapping him, and that Menees once hit him on the head. Menees is also accused of giving her meth.
Hayford, the teenager said, would “throw rocks at her” and verbally abuse her, according to the probable cause statement.
His mother is also accused of giving him alcohol and drugs, including marijuana and gabapentin.
From age 13 to 14, the boy said in the interview that he “experienced a ‘major depression’ where he ate bugs, leaves and stole food,” the probable cause statement says. During the interview with his younger brother at the child advocacy center, the boy corroborated the story about Hayford and Menees being confined to a chicken coop and shot, according to investigators.
The 13-year-old also detailed further physical abuse by his mother, sharing that he once saw her touch “his sister’s breast area,” the probable cause statement says.
Hayford also faces one count of first-degree sexual assault as a result, according to the sheriff’s office.
According to the probable cause statement, an adult woman who became the children’s “guardian” told law enforcement she first met the brothers when they “came into her house and begged for food.”
After Hayford granted the woman custody of her children, the woman said she took them to a doctor’s office and found them to be “severely underweight,” the statement says.
He also “said the children were never enrolled in school or educated and therefore could not read or write,” the statement continued.
In an interview with KSDK, Washington County Sheriff Scott Reed he said, “I don’t think I’ve even heard of one case like this. We have never received a call to this residence before. Where they live is very rural.
Potosi, where Hayford and Menees live, is about a 70-mile drive southwest of St. Louis.
Hayford and Menees are being held without bail, according to court records. His bond hearings are scheduled for January 20.
If you suspect child abuse, call Childhelp National’s Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or visit ChildHelp.org. All calls are free and confidential, and the hotline is available 24 hours a day in over 170 languages.