Florida Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier will seek the death penalty in the case of two adults who are accused of trapping four children in a tractor-trailer cab for more than six years.
Keisha Monique Epps, 51, and Tamra Marshon Stewart, 37, are charged with sexual battery, molestation, and neglect, according to a report from Fox News.
They were arrested on Aug. 6.
The victims included two boys and two girls — one was 9 years old, another was 6, and two were 5.
“These children were trapped in a rolling prison and abused by the adults who were supposed to protect them,” Uthmeier said.
“We will pursue with everything we have the death penalty. We will seek executions, if you want to come in here and you want to physically molest, abuse, and violate our little kids.”
Florida AG seeks death penalty for two sickos who trapped kids in tractor-trailer for six years https://t.co/i6LCzr0q7J pic.twitter.com/lndxIWUWGc
— New York Post (@nypost) September 7, 2026
Under Florida law, those who commit sexual battery against a child under 12 years old can be subject to the death penalty.
Epps and Stewart, who are engaged, allegedly lived in the cab with the children.
Epps worked as a truck driver.
Stewart is accused of sexually abusing the two girls for years.
When the boys confronted Stewart over the abuse they saw, he allegedly punched them in their heads, per Fox News.
Stewart admitted to investigators that he committed three acts of sexual battery against one of the girls.
Beyond the alleged abuse, Epps and Stewart disallowed the children from taking showers or using the restroom.
Uthmeier said they had to relieve themselves in cups and paper bags.
“They might take a shower, but they would leave the kids locked in this rolling dungeon,” Uthmeier said of the occasions when they would make stops.
The children now endure “severe physical infirmities.”
They have not attended school for years, and a detective said the children were “walking with an unnatural gait from being confined to the cab.”
Uthmeier’s office said that Stewart has been charged with “two counts of sexual battery by a person in familial or custodial authority, two counts of lewd or lascivious molestation of a child under 12, two counts of battery of a child by expelling certain fluids or materials, two counts of child neglect without great bodily harm, and two counts of child neglect causing permanent disfigurement.”
Epps meanwhile faces “two counts of sexual battery by a person in familial or custodial authority, two counts of lewd or lascivious molestation of a child under 12, two counts of child neglect without great bodily harm, two counts of child neglect causing permanent disfigurement, and four counts of failure to report child abuse.”
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