Boy, 8, Locked In Room Without Bed, Toilet For Months In Brick; Women Guilty Of Abuse

BRICK, NJ — For months in 2015 and 2016, an 8-year-old boy was kept locked in a room in a Brick Township home around the clock. He had no toys, no bed, no lights, no furniture. No access to the bathroom and no contact with the rest of his family.

On Thursday, his mother and another woman were found guilty of abusing and neglecting him, more than eight years after that abuse began, the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office announced Friday.

Helecia L. Morris, 41, and Donna A. Jung, 57, were convicted Thursday by an Ocean County jury following a weeklong trial before Superior Court Judge Lisa A. Puglisi on a charge of endangering the welfare of a child, Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said.

Morris, of Brick, and Jung, who has been living in Lehigh Acres, Florida, were remanded to the Ocean County Jail, Toms River, after the verdict, and will be held there until sentencing which is scheduled for July 7, Billhimer said. They face a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, he said.

The abuse was discovered Jan. 9, 2016, when Brick Township police and representatives from the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency went to a home on Queen Ann Road to conduct a wellness check on the boy, who was Morris's son.

Inside, they found the boy locked in his room "in abhorrent conditions," including an overwhelming odor of urine, the prosecutor's office said.

The boy and two other children were removed from the home and taken to Hackensack Meridian Ocean University Medical Center in Brick for evaluation, and all three children were placed in foster care, the prosecutor said.

Investigators learned the boy had been locked in the room day and night by Morris and Jung and was not allowed to use the bathroom in the home, Billhimer said. The charges said the abuse happened between April 1, 2015, and the Jan. 9, 2016 wellness check.

The boy "was excluded from socializing with the rest of the family. The room contained no bed, no furniture, no lights and no toys," he said.

Authorities searched the house with a search warrant on Jan. 11, 2016, and Morris and Jung were arrested but subsequently released on bail. (Their arrests occurred prior to New Jersey bail reform taking effect on Jan. 1, 2017.)

Senior Assistant Prosecutor Mara Brater tried the case on behalf of the state. The Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Special Victims Unit, Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Victim Witness Advocacy Unit, Brick Township Police Department and the Division of Child Protection and Permanency collaborated on the investigation.