The parents of a 4-year-old girl from Missouri allegedly killed by neighbors to remove a “demon” pleaded not guilty to the charges in the case
COLE CAMP, Missouri – The parents of a 4-year-old girl from Missouri allegedly killed by neighbors to remove a “demon” pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges related to the case.
Mary S. Mast, 29, and James A. Mast, 28, both from Lincoln, Missouri, were accused Thursday of putting a child in danger, resulting in death and are arrested without bail. They still don’t have lawyers.
During the charges on Monday, associate judge Mark Brandon Pilley also denied the couple’s request to attend the girl’s funeral, according to online court records. A bail hearing was scheduled for January 5.
The couple’s other children, a 2-year-old son and a baby, were placed in protective custody, Benton County Sheriff Eric Knox said in a press release.
The girl was found dead at the family home on December 20. Knox said she had been severely beaten and plunged into an icy lake as part of what appeared to be a “religious type episode”.
Neighbors across the street from Ethan Mast, 35, and Kourtney Aumen, 21, were charged last week with second-degree murder and other crimes. Both are being held without bail. Ethan Mast is not believed to be related to James and Mary Mast, said Knox.
Both families attend the same church, but Knox said that actions involving the girl are not tolerated by the church, which he declined to reveal.
“The investigation so far indicates that this is an isolated incident and NOT the actions of a sect,” wrote Knox in a press release on the department’s Facebook page.
A statement of probable cause from Benton County Sgt. Chris Wilson said the girl was already dead and had “severe bruises” on her body, as well as burst blisters, when he was called to the house.
Knox said the girl’s parents had also been beaten with the 2-year-old. The child came out unscathed.
James Mast told investigators that he and his wife observed their daughter’s beating, but were told they would be beaten or shot if they tried to intervene.
Still, Wilson asked James Mast “how he could let people do this to his family and he said they said (his wife) had a ‘Demon’ inside her and her children would end up just like her if they weren’t cared for,” Wilson wrote in the statement of probable cause.
Ethan Mast told investigators that he and Aumen used a leather belt to beat the girl on December 19, the statement said. She was then taken to a lake behind the house, where she was “immersed” in the water on a day when the high temperatures were in her 40s.
Ethan Mast said that everyone then returned to the victims’ home. It was not clear when the child died.
Benton County, with about 19,000 residents, is 100 miles (161 kilometers) southeast of Kansas City, Missouri.