OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington state would pay $4.6 million to two children who were abused by their father and stepmother in Carnation under a tentative settlement.
The Department of Social and Health Services says the agreement must be approved by a judge.
When police went to the home in August 2008, they found that the older child, a 14-year-old girl, was badly malnourished and weighed just 48 pounds.
Child Protective Services had looked into the girl’s case three years earlier when she told a teacher she was frequently locked in her room and given little to eat. At the time, the stepmother agreed to stop the maltreatment, and the girl told a social worker she was getting enough to eat.