Zaikiya Duncan, mom of tortured Texas teens, posted unsettling videos of kids dancing
Unsettling video shows a Texas mom accused of horrific child abuse carefree and dancing with her kids — before two of her children were found emaciated and nearly naked after escaping the home.
Zaikiya Duncan, 40, and her boyfriend, Jova Terrell, 27, have been arrested after the 16-year-old twins managed to break free from their handcuffs and fled to a neighbor’s home.
The boy and girl were allegedly shackled by the couple and abandoned inside their Houston home, where they said they had been forced to drink their own urine and eat their own feces, sources told KHOU.
But despite the harrowing accounts, Duncan portrayed the household as anything but a den of horror in social media postings, where she shared seemingly happy photos and videos of herself with the kids and other relatives.
“I love spending time with my boys,” she wrote in April 2021, along with a photo of four of her six sons enjoying candy in the living room with a large sign reading “HOME” visible on a wall in the background.
The following month, she congratulated her youngest son for graduating from the Idea public school.
“Congratulations to my Baby Boy Nicholas On all his accomplishments this school year I’m so proud of you!” she wrote. “Second grade here he comes! Lol he is the tallest in his class!”
The child is seen being handed a certificate while surrounded by blue and white balloons. The name of the school looms as a gold balloon behind him.
Duncan also posted multiple videos of the children happily dancing — in stark contrast with the nightmarish accounts of family life.
“Ok!!! Our boys heading into the laser tag game!!!” she captioned a clip from June 15, 2021.
On the same day, she posted a video of two of the kids happily dancing by the fireplace, writing, “I can’t with them,” along with laughing emojis.
After she joined TikTok in 2020, she posted a clip of herself busting some moves with two of her children, captioning it: “Me and the kids Goofing Out.”
A month later, Duncan shared another video of herself dancing with the children.
“Me and my Crew,” she captioned the clip.
Notably, neither Terrell nor the oldest set of twins seemed to have appeared in any of her posts, the outlet said.
In the charging documents obtained by KHOU 11, the 16-year-olds told investigators that they were kept naked and handcuffed in a small laundry room and had to keep silent all day or they would be beaten.
They also had to defecate and urinate on themselves and had only a dirty mop to wipe it off, officials said.
The only food they were given were sandwiches of mustard, bologna or relish a couple of times a week. Authorities said they were severely malnourished when they were found, according to the documents.
The boy had found the key to their handcuffs in Duncan’s purse and hid it in his mouth, then unlocked himself and his twin, broke the zip ties around their legs and ran out of the house, the documents added.
Once helped by the neighbor, the teens — who suffered fractures and were both malnourished — were taken to a hospital.
Duncan, Terrell and the other kids — ages 14, 10, 7 and 12-year-old twins — fled to Louisiana, where the couple was arrested.
The 16-year-olds and their five siblings have been placed into care after police learned of the horrific treatment described in charging documents.
The family had recently moved into a brand new $600,000 home in Cypress, Texas, with neighbors saying they had only been living there for two weeks, according to KPRC.
