Every once in a while we come across a story that’s so upsetting that we hesitate to share it with you. After all, we tend to gravitate towards lighter tales of good deeds and cute puppies, but we also realize that the more disturbing ones can lead to awareness and, hopefully, action.

Meet Elizabeth McLeod. She’s a daycare worker at Randleman Enrichment School in Randleman, North Carolina. Among her students was a 5-year-old girl with big blue eyes and a Southern twang who, after moving in with her father, began exhibiting some troubling behavior.

Since she was a baby, the girl had bounced around between foster homes and relatives, and had even been taken out of her father’s custody before, but that fact didn’t seem to affect her placement back in his home earlier this year.

McLeod tells Fox 8 that she and her co-workers “noticed an immediate change” in the 5-year-old’s behavior upon her reunion with her father. “She did act out, she had a hard time playing with people.” Soon after, the girl was pulled out of school, but that didn’t mean that the daycare wasn’t getting reports of what was going on at her home.

You see, the girl’s siblings were the first ones to tip off the caregivers, dropping them alarming hints about how their sister was locked in a closet and carried around in a tote bag as punishment.

McLeod was rightfully disturbed by the claims, so she found her way into this family’s home by offering to tutor one of the children. It was then that she got her first glimpse of the girl— and the daycare worker knew she had to do something.

Around the same, the victim’s step-grandmother, Linda Bensky, was on the phone with both police and DSS, nearing the end of her rope. The woman claims that she struggled to get help for the girl since she last saw her in April.

Based on her past dealings with her granddaughter’s dad, Adam Joshua Byrd, she had a premonition that he would not provide a safe home. In fact, she was convinced that the girl would either end up “dead or in a closet,” a chilling prediction that she says was her “worst fear.”

Apparently, the months of calls from Bensky coupled with the day care’s claims were enough to get the cops to officially investigate.

Once the authorities showed up at the home of Adam Joshua Byrd and Crystal Dawn Carnahan, a woman who is being described as a “caregiver”, they knew that they were going to have to carry out a delicate rescue.

They found the girl in a tiny two-foot by four-foot closet burned, beaten, and starving. The 5-year-old is now in the custody of DSS and her abusers are sitting in Randolph County Jail.

To learn even more about this upsetting case and to hear an official statement from the local police, watch WGHP’s video below. May this serve as a reminder to all of us; if we suspect abuse, we need to take action AND follow up!

We’re interested to hear what you have to say about this little girl’s horrific situation. Have you struggled to get help for an abused family member or friend? Do you think the authorities were too late in helping this girl? How should her abusers be punished for their crimes?