BROWN COUNTY, Ohio — A convicted child abuser in Brown County was scheduled to be in court again Friday, accused of raping another child in his care.
A judge sentenced Charles Breeze and his wife, Margaret, to prison for 10 to 13 years Thursday. Police arrested them in 2019 for beating, starving and isolating an 11-year-old girl in their care.
Just 24 hours after the sentencing, Charles Breeze was supposed to have a pretrial hearing for a case in which he faces six counts of rape and two counts of sexual battery. The judge agreed to move the hearing to April 8.
The mother who adopted the 11-year-old girl in the first abuse case said the continuing cases have been an "emotional rollercoaster". She asked that WCPO conceal her name to protect the identity of the child she adopted.
She said the girl is a straight-A seventh grader now, sharing home videos that show how far she has come since being locked away, forced to wear diapers, beaten and fed one plate of rice a day.
“Turning on the shower, taking a shower, daily routine, brushing her hair, brushing her teeth, what time do you get up? Just typical things that you teach a little kid, she didn't have a clue,” the woman said. “She didn’t know how to play — that was a big thing. 'Hey, let’s go outside.' 'Well, what do you do out there?'"
The adoptive mother said the girl’s biological mother left her with the Breezes when she was four. For years, people connected to the family reported suspicions of abuse.
“The children are older now, and they said they remember CPS coming, but they were threatened with, ‘If you say anything, you won’t make it through the night,'” she said.
Then, in 2019, a home school teacher heard the little girl say she was hungry and alerted investigators. The child was 47 pounds and in liver failure on her rescue day.
"I’m not going to say that CPS didn’t do their job, I’m saying the parents did a good job at hiding what they were doing," the mother said. "Now, her motto is, and we say it to each other often, they stole your childhood. They stole your development, but they’re not going to steal your future."
The child wrote that in a letter to the Breezes on the day the judge sentenced them to 10-13 years in prison.
“She smiled from the time we left the courthouse until she went to bed last night. She was smiling this morning when she went to get on the bus,” the mother said. “She said it was good to see that they finally have to pay for all the things they did to her.”
When asked how she feels about another court case against Charles Breeze, she said, "I actually enjoy sitting back and watching the karma train hit them."
Margaret will go to Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville. Charles will go to a correctional facility in Orient for 90 days to 6 months. Then, he will transfer to another prison.
