LONGVIEW — When Haylee Norred was about 8 years old, she said she lived alone in a locked Longview room without furniture, heat or light. She was punished when she escaped to find food in the dumpster, and called names like “pig” when she ate table crumbs amongst locked kitchen cabinets.
Nearly 13 years later on Monday, her abuser and aunt Jennifer Norred, 42, was sentenced to 90 days of incarceration, after pleading guilty in October, bringing independence to her niece.
“I’m finally free,” Haylee Norred said.
For almost a decade, Haylee Norred said she lived isolated and starved under her aunt’s care. Today, the girl who wasn’t able to play with friends, attend school or even eat until full, has been given a second chance.
“I hoped and prayed every day something would change, but I didn’t know when,” she said. “I never knew the darkness would end.”
‘I didn’t know it was wrong’
Court records show Jennifer Norred was arrested in February 2019 for two counts of criminal mistreatment and was released from jail that March on a $2,000 bond. She was sentenced Monday and is scheduled to be taken into custody Dec. 27.
Haylee Norred’s great-aunt Cindy Stauffer said charges came after the children in Jennifer Norred’s care were able to tell their grandmother about living conditions. Stauffer said a family member called the police during a fight between Jennifer Norred and her boyfriend and the children were taken away. A police report states six children were taken from Jennifer Norred’s care in 2018.
Under her grandma’s care, Haylee Norred said she started to question whether her aunt’s treatment of her was abuse. “Grandma treated me differently,” she said, by providing three meals a day. Eventually, she told her family and a social worker about her living situation.
“I didn’t know it was wrong until I told them,” she said.
A probable cause statement for Jennifer Norred’s arrest states she told people an eating disorder and a mental disability attributed to Haylee Norred’s social isolation and small demeanor. When officials took the child in 2018, police reported the 17-year-old weighed 84 pounds. The report states her weight and IQ score increased after she was taken from her aunt’s custody.
At Monday’s sentencing, Jennifer Norred said she was in an abusive relationship which she depended on for housing during the time she cared for her niece and other children. She said she has done a lot of self-work, is “different now” and loves her niece.
“I’ll never forgive myself for what my kids went through,” Jennifer Norred said.
‘Wasn’t allowed to be normal’
Haylee Norred said life with her aunt Jennifer Norred didn’t start off badly. Her aunt asked to take her when Haylee Norred’s biological mother couldn’t care for the 7 year old. At first, Haylee Norred said she had a bed and desk. She spent time listening to music and cleaning with her aunt.
That changed, Haylee Norred said, when her aunt gave birth to her first girl, and slowly, more chores were delegated to the 8 year old, then furniture, food and socialization was stripped away.
Inside what she called the “back room” of a 17th Avenue home, Haylee Norred said she used pieces of cable wiring and her bare hands to claw through a closet in hopes of reaching a food pantry. When she broke through the wooden bedroom door to find food, a steel door took its place, she said. When she escaped through the window to grab stale bread from a dumpster, plywood was nailed over the opening and light was shut out.
Stauffer said she’d see the shy youth with thick glasses about four times a year at holiday gatherings, but Haylee Norred never talked, and never played with other kids. Stauffer said Jennifer Norred told the family her niece was autistic and had a disorder that made her eat food uncontrollably, prompting her to lock the kitchen cabinets and refrigerator.
“We believed she was autistic and had an eating disorder,” Stauffer said. “She fooled everybody.”
Haylee Norred said her aunt also told her she was autistic and physically threatened her before family functions to not disclose information about her living situation.
When the state agency that investigates reports of child abuse paid visits, Haylee Norred said the barren “back room” she lived in was given a bed and TV. When Child Protective Services left, the items would disappear and the child “didn’t know why.”
“I wasn’t allowed to be normal,” Haylee Norred said. “It was like she had control of my mind.”
‘There is always a way out’
Today, Haylee Norred is living on her own near Warrenton, Ore. She has a boyfriend, two cats and a best friend she said she can call anytime and will always get an answer.
She learned to drive a car, graduated from high school at the age of 20 and took her first plane ride to California last summer.
She said she’s close with her extended family, but fears running into her aunt when visiting Longview. She said journaling and counseling has helped her cope with the trauma, as nightmares persist, but still hopes Jennifer Norred “gets the help she really does need.”
“Because that’s my aunt,” Haylee Norred said.
She said she is studying criminology at Clatsop Community College to be a lawyer or police officer to help people trapped in similar situations as her experience from about 8 to 17 years old.
“I know many people are out there in the same place I was in,” she said. “But, there is always a way out. You just need to find it.”
