Texas twins escape handcuffs after they were allegedly abused by mother, police say
The twins managed to escape their abusive home after the teen boy hid the key to the handcuffs in his mouth, court documents show.
The twins said they were forced to drink bleach, had corrosive oven cleaner sprayed in their mouths, and were routinely beaten and burned, according to court documents.
CYPRESS, Texas — Twin siblings managed to escape their abusive home in Cypress, Texas, after the teen boy hid the key to the handcuffs in his mouth, according to court documents.
The teen waited for his mother and her boyfriend to fall asleep so he could unlock the restraints on their wrists, and run away.
The detail was revealed in new court documents filed against their mother, who is waiting to be extradited from Louisiana to Harris County.
Their mother, Zaikiya Duncan, 40, and her boyfriend, Jova Terrell, 27, are being charged with injury to a child in Harris County.
They were taken into custody Tuesday in Baton Rouge after fleeing with five of her other children and triggering an Amber Alert.
Duncan appeared in a Louisiana courtroom earlier on Thursday in a straight jacket.
Bond for Duncan and Terrell has been denied.
The teens’ brave getaway stunned the community where they lived, but they were able to find sanctuary at the home of a complete stranger.
“They did not hold a single thing back. The mom had them in handcuffs in the laundry room. They were not allowed to eat,” the neighbor who took them in said, adding that all the boy could think about was food. “He was saying he’s starving.”
Now, days after their escape, we’re learning more about what they endured in that home.
In an interview with detectives, the 16-year-olds said they were forced to drink bleach, had corrosive oven cleaner sprayed in their mouths, and were routinely beaten and burned.
During the interview, police say the girl was wearing a gray plastic grocery bag around her neck. She said that’s what she had to use as a shirt.
Court records also state the children said all they were given to eat were mustard, relish, or bologna sandwiches. They say they had to drink from a water supply valve for the washing machine.
When it came to sleeping, records state the teens said they were forced to take dangerous amounts of pills.
All of this had become a routine. But this was not the only incident.
About 10 years ago, their mother was arrested for cruelty to a juvenile in 2012, in their hometown of Baton Rouge. She took a parenting class as part of probation, and the charge was reduced.
Court documents add that the abuse has been going on since at least July.
The children are now in CPS custody.
When KTRK-TV reached out to their biological father, his wife said they had no comment.
Can I Legally Run Away?
Jun 11, 2021|7 min read
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Written & Approved By: Evolve’s Behavioral Health Content Team
Alyson Orcena, LMFT, Melissa Vallas, MD, Shikha Verma, MD, Ellen Bloch, LCSW, Lianne Tendler, LMFT, Megan Johnston, LMFT
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You hate your life and your parents.
Things are bad at home – and you want to run away.
You imagine a clean slate. An escape. A fresh start. Maybe you think running away will make everything better. Maybe you believe that leaving everything behind will make your problems disappear.
But you’re not sure how to do it. And you wonder about the logistics.
You also wonder if running away legal.
Many Teens Want to Run Away
First, we’ll tell you this: many teens have been in your shoes. About two million youth try to run away each year, according to The National Runaway Safeline. Most are between the ages of 12-17. Most teens run away after a conflict with their family. About half of all runaway teens say the primary reason they leave is because of their parents.
Sadly, many parents tell their teens to leave the house or don’t try to stop them when they leave.
Statistics show that many teen runaways run to escape an abusive home environment. This can include physical abuse, sexual abuse, or both. Evidence shows 80 percent of female teen runaways experience sexual abuse. Verbal abuse often features prominently in these situations, too: many parents lash out at their teens without thinking about the impact of their words or actions. Most teen runaways want to escape abuse.
Running away, for them, seems safer than staying with their parents.
Evidence shows that LGBTQI+ teens are also at high risk for running away. Teens who question their sexual orientation or who do not conform to gender norms are often shunned by their parents, siblings, extended family, and friends. If they’re not outright rejected, shunning may cause them to feel ashamed about themselves. Studies show that between 11-40 percent of homeless/runaway teens in the U.S. identify as LGBTQI+. And close to 40 percent of runaway teens in Los Angeles are LGBTQI+.
Running Away is Not a Good Solution
Teens who run away often believe their home isn’t safe or their parents aren’t safe. And they may be right.
However, there’s one thing that they might forget:
The streets aren’t safe, either.
Most teen runaways are unprepared for life on the street. When they run out of money, many youth runaways end up homeless, hungry, and bitterly cold or dangerously hot. Unsavory characters will try to solicit adolescent runaways for prostitution. They offer food, money, or shelter in return. Desperate teens may give in – because they lack these necessities – but can end up stuck in a dangerous cycle that may include sex trafficking, using drugs, dealing drugs, violence, and other forms of exploitation.
If they don’t get involved in prostitution and drugs, runaway teens may end up in juvenile jail because they resort to stealing to survive. Street life is cruel and harsh. Teens under the age of 18 are officially minors. That makes it difficult to find work or do anything that requires the consent or co-signature of a parent or guardian. This limits or completely eliminates many opportunities to take care of themselves, financially and physically.
Most teens who run away don’t think that far ahead. But teens who consider running away need to think through the real-world consequences very carefully.
But Is It Illegal to Run Away?
We know you’re waiting for the answer to the question we pose in the title of this article.
The short answer is no.
Running away is not a crime.
You cannot get arrested or charged with a crime for running away from your family. However – and this is a big however – some states consider running away a status offense.
A status offense is something considered illegal because of a teen’s underage status. Other types of status offenses are not going to school (truancy), violating curfew, buying cigarettes, and underage drinking.
Status offenses have consequences for teens. Consequences include fines, counseling, suspended driving privileges, and at times, alternative living arrangements.
In contrast, non-status juvenile offenses are crimes committed by teens. These include things like shoplifting, burglary, assault, and murder. There’s an easy way to know the difference between a juvenile crime and a status offense. If an adult would go to jail for the offense in question, it’s a criminal offense. If an adult wouldn’t go to jail, it’s a status offense.
So, is running away a crime?
Technically, no.
Is it a good idea?
Absolutely not.
What to Do If You’re Thinking of Running Away
If you run want to away from home, please explore other options to improve the situation you want to run away from.
Talk to your school counselor, faith leader, an empathetic relative, or any other trusted adult – like a friend’s mom or dad, perhaps – to talk through your situation. Ask them for help, support, and advice. They may be able to serve as a liaison between you and your parents if the lines of communication are broken. They may convince your parents to try family therapy, where you and your parents can work through your issues in a safe space conducive to healing.
If you live in an abusive household that’s unsafe, it’s important to share this information with the adults you choose to talk to. Keep in mind that most adults will be obligated to call Child Protective Services (CPS) or the police on your behalf. You can call CPS directly as well. If you’re afraid of calling from home, go to a friend’s house or another safe place to make the call.
Can Anyone Else Help?
In terms of your short-term living situation: consider whether a relative can take you in until you resolve the situation at home. Consider aunts, uncles, grandparents, or cousins. Consider friends. While it may be awkward, difficult, or embarrassing to ask, it’s still exponentially better than life on the street. If you think they may say no, take the risk and ask. They may welcome you with open arms.
If your home situation is bad – i.e. you’re the victim of violence, abuse, and/or neglect – and a relative or guardian can take you in, you can eventually ask a family court for a transfer of legal guardianship. A judge will consider both sides and decide whether it makes sense for you to stay with a relative instead of your parents. In the juvenile/child support system, a judge has the power to transfer guardianship to another adult if the situation calls for it, even if your parents refuse.
Call 1-800-RUNAWAY
If you’ve already tried all this, or are planning on running away anyway, please call The National Runaway Safeline (1–800-RUNAWAY) before you do anything.
The National Runaway Safeline is 100% confidential and open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The trained staff working at the Safeline will not call your parents if you don’t want them to.
They will not contact the authorities unless you specifically tell them about incidents of abuse.
What they will do is help ensure you are safe and taken care of. They will help direct you to shelters and tell you about alternative living arrangements. They can send a message to your parents on your behalf. If and when you consider returning home, they can help. But only if you want to. They will not pressure you to do anything that’s not in your best interest.
Residential Treatment for Teens
Teens with mental health or substance use issues may have a difficult home life. One thing common to adolescents with depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), alcohol or substance use disorder (AUD/SUD), psychosis, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD), or other behavioral issues is interpersonal conflict with parents. If your family interactions always turn explosive and end in angry shouting matches, it’s possible you and your parents could benefit from professional treatment and support, in the form of individual therapy, family therapy, or both.
‘Uncomfortably relatable’: writers on their favourite unlikable movie characters
With debate still swirling over the unlikable nature of Marty Supreme’s careless protagonist, Guardian writers have picked their all-time love-to-hate leads
Spoilers ahead
Andrew Lawrence, Benjamin Lee, Andrew Pulver, Alaina Demopoulos, Adrian Horton, Veronica Esposito, Jesse Hassenger, Richard Lawson, Catherine Shoard, Radheyan Simonpillai and Tammy TarngTue 13 Jan 2026 10.01 GMTShare871
Melvin Udall – As Good As It Gets
I can remember seeing As Good As It Gets in the theater as a teenager and being pleasantly startled by the sight of Jack Nicholson’s Melvin Udall, romcom super-grouch. Here’s a bestselling romance author who disdains love, an OCD sufferer who weaponizes his affliction, a New Yorker who hates crowds (who can’t relate?). In one scene, an adoring fan asks Melvin his secret to writing women. “I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability,” he says, an epic burn forever seared in my brain. Of course Melvin’s anti-charm offensive only goes so far in a James L Brooks project. Before long, the rudeness erodes as Melvin is forced on to a journey of self-discovery with the nextdoor neighbor he can’t abide (Greg Kinnear) and the diner waitress he can’t live without (Helen Hunt). Melvin comes out a changed man in the end, but retains the essence of his super-grouch-dom. That was the moment I fell in love with the writer’s life. Andrew Lawrence
- As Good As It Gets is available on Netflix in the US, to rent digitally in the UK and on Binge in Australia
Mavis Gary – Young Adult
Things don’t really go as Mavis Gary expected them to in 2011’s acidic black comedy Young Adult. The middling YA ghost author, borderline alcoholic and “psychotic prom queen bitch” rampages back to her home town so she can save her high school boyfriend Buddy, convinced he’s miserable and desperate for an out (an ugly baby, a cardigan-wearing wife and a “shabby chic” house in the suburbs – just imagine). But it’s Mavis, as played by an astonishingly awful Charlize Theron, who is truly miserable, a stunted, peaked-in-high-school bully who just can’t move on from her long-ago heyday. Things don’t really go as we expect either, Diablo Cody’s daring, difficult character study refusing to hand Mavis the redemptive arc we’ve grown accustomed to, taking her close to profound realisation before dragging her back down into darkness. I’ve never grown tired of rewatching Mavis – deluded, drunk and devoid of empathy – stubbornly resist change and betterment. Maybe because there’s something both bitterly realistic and selfishly reassuring about watching someone slide from the relatable (a sneering drive through her anonymous retail park-riddled home town is not not something I have also done) to the tragic (recounting a high school miscarriage and fear that her body is broken) to the fully monstrous (telling Buddy’s warm and accommodating wife that she fucking hates her, akin to watching a puppy get drop-kicked). Mavis might go far, far over the edge, but I never would. Right? Benjamin Lee
- Young Adult is available on Kanopy and Hoopla in the US and to rent digitally in the UK and Australia
Barton Fink – Barton Fink
The Coen brothers have always specialised in dislikable protagonists; all the way back to their debut Blood Simple, it was hard to work out who was more irritating: Frances McDormand’s self-absorbed Abby, John Getz’s gormless Ray or M Emmet Walsh’s gigglingly self-satisfied private eye Loren Visser. A spin through their back catalogue is a parade of prize pigs: Gabriel Byrne’s duplicitous Tom Reagan in Miller’s Crossing, George Clooney’s smirking Ulysses Everett McGill in O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Oscar Isaac’s super-irritating folkie in Inside Llewyn Davis. (While not exactly hateful, Michael Stuhlbarg’s Larry Gopnik in A Serious Man is a prime example of what they used to call a wet blanket.) In the spirit of boosting the superb Marty Supreme, I’d like to point out that every one of these films is brilliant – and perhaps in the chef’s kiss of Coen counterintuition, arguably their greatest film contains their most annoying protagonist: Barton Fink. (Even his name is irritating.) Fink is someone who is painfully awkward and overweeningly arrogant, neurotically intellectual and self-centredly unaware, supercilious and chip-on-the-shoulderish, all at the same time. He couldn’t be more dislikeable … and yet, like Marty Mauser, it gives the character a restless, questing energy that makes him a compelling eyeball-magnet for everything that happens. What saves both of them (or “redeems” in the script-readers’ vernacular) is that neither are actively horrible or evil; there’s some spark of morality underneath it all. I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies. Andrew Pulver
- Barton Fink is available on the Criterion Channel in the US, YouTube in the UK and to rent digitally in Australia
Wren – Smithereens
Consider Smithereens the grittier older sister of Desperately Seeking Susan, director Susan Seidelman’s better-known Madonna vehicle. Obnoxious does not begin to accurately describe its hero, Wren, a New Jersey refugee who flees to New York in hopes of making it big in the punk scene. (Doing what, exactly, is beside the point.) She’s a charmless social climber who constantly big leagues the only friend she’s ever had, a van-dwelling beatnik type named Paul. Instead, she has her eyes on a fictionalized version of Richard Hell, played by the Voidoid himself (wouldn’t you?). I give Wren maybe too many passes. I love her fabulous outfits – someday I hope to find a dupe of the fuzzy pink coat she wears waiting for me at a thrift store – and the way she wakes up every morning after ripping her life to shreds the night before. Sure, Wren’s aloof, rude and manic in her desires. Male leads have gotten away with much worse for the eternity of film history. I can’t help but root for her. Alaina Demopoulos
- Smithereens is available on HBO Max and the Criterion Channel in the US, Amazon Prime in the UK, and Plex in Australia
Ingrid Thorburn – Ingrid Goes West
No one can argue that Ingrid, a deeply unwell woman played by Aubrey Plaza in Matt Spicer’s underrated 2017 thriller Ingrid Goes West, does the right things. We meet her fresh out of a psychiatric facility, where she was relegated after pepper-spraying a bride at a wedding she wasn’t invited to, and follow her west, where she latches on to the persona played online by influencer Taylor (Elizabeth Olsen) and wheedles into her avocado toast life. And yet I still root for Ingrid, as she is the personification of a dark and under-explored part of all our internet-addled brains – the part that implicitly understands the precise currency of envy in our culture, that fixates on certain faces, that remembers the exact details of a stranger’s engagement party. That relishes comeuppance, craves validations and burns with corrosive anger when everyone from wannabe influencers to celebrities win the attention economy with obvious falsehoods (Kendall Jenner’s claim that Accutane permanently shrinks your nose? Please). A part of me gets Ingrid’s quest, her disillusionment and rage. I do not endorse vigilante accountability for the fake and successfully boring, but I do enjoy watching it. Adrian Horton
- Ingrid Goes West is available on Kanopy in the US, YouTube in the UK and to rent digitally in Australia
Patrick Bateman – American Psycho
After many failed attempts to adapt American Psycho into a film – including a cracked screenplay written by Bret Easton Ellis that ended atop the World Trade Center, and potential involvement from David Cronenberg, Brad Pitt, Oliver Stone and even Leonardo DiCaprio – relatively unknown Mary Harron, fresh off of showing I Shot Andy Warhol at Cannes, completed a screenplay with actor Guinevere Turner and cast Christian Bale as the star. Harron’s satire of toxic masculinity and corporate greed is as dark as they come – there’s the infamous scene of serial killer Patrick Bateman frustratedly trying to figure out how to feed a stray cat to an ATM, and the running joke throughout is that being a sociopathic murderer fails to make him stand out from his colleagues in finance. Bateman’s utter odiousness is essential to the film’s schizoid world, where he robotically delivers a solipsistic monologue on Phil Collins before staging a porn shoot with two sex workers, or where he holds a nail gun to the back of his unknowing secretary’s head while politely toying with seducing her. It’s all in the service of constructing an aesthetic realm that’s nothing but slick surfaces, a film about the loneliness and utter emptiness of sociopathy, the ultimate hell of living in a world where nothing that you do matters at all. There’s a reason Harmon’s feminist revision of the book has steadily gained a cult following as the world has moved through the relatively placid 1990s and into a new gilded age ruled by the likes of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump. Bale’s Bateman may be utterly unlikable, but he’s far from unrecognizable. Veronica Esposito
- American Psycho is available on Amazon Prime and the Criterion Channel in the US, Netflix in the UK, and Netflix and Stan in Australia
Roger Greenberg – Greenberg
Watch certain groups of Noah Baumbach films – his early comedies, his collaborations with Greta Gerwig or his new movie, Jay Kelly – and you wouldn’t particularly think of him as chronicling especially unlikable or even particularly disagreeable characters. Many of them are downright charming. But if you catch him in the right period – most especially between 2005 and 2010 – his movies can seem like endurance exercises for the cringe-averse. That’s particularly true of the title character in his 2010 film Greenberg, played by Ben Stiller. Many Baumbach protagonists struggle with the disappointments of ageing, whether in their teens, 20s, 30s or in Greenberg’s case, mid-40s; Stiller, with his uniquely prickly comic style and talent for getting hung up on the details, turns that struggle into something at once symphonic and redolent of a stubborn, lonely solo. What makes the unemployable-seeming Greenberg, a middling handyman and ex-musician who can barely handle dog-sitting for his brother, so delightful to me is his ill-timed but honest rage bombs, whether carefully set and delivered into the ether (like a series of hilariously petty complaint letters) or thrown with self-conscious self-destructiveness (he modifies “youth is wasted on the young” to “life is wasted on people”). He’s abrasive, self-centered and caustic in a way that certain viewers will (and I assume Baumbach and Stiller did) find uncomfortably relatable. The film understands that insecure, adolescent impulses don’t always escape through frat-boy immaturity; sometimes they emerge through very real frustrations with the way life defies expectations. Jesse Hassenger
- Greenberg is available to rent digitally
Pansy Deacon – Hard Truths
Pansy Deacon is the sort of brutally unlikable character who finds little, if any, redemption. She remains pretty much awful from the beginning to the end of Mike Leigh’s shattering 2024 character study, Hard Truths. There is a moment of cathartic laughter in the film, and a scene of something like reconciliation between Pansy and her cheerful sister. But otherwise, Leigh and actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s frightening creation remains a howling locus of resentment, anxiety and cruelty. She’s a stunning character, loathsome and only the faintest bit pitiable. Pansy is so vivid in her miserableness that, beyond some critics groups, awards bodies seemingly found it impossible to welcome Jean-Baptiste into their festivities last year. Which was disappointing. But that snubbing was also a testament to the dazzling, exacting craft of Hard Truths. I still find myself thinking of Pansy from time to time, hoping dumbly that she’s found a way out of her malaise, but knowing that she would probably swat away such sentiment with a derisive laugh, or a monologue about how pointless it is to try to care for her. Richard Lawson
- Hard Truths is available on Paramount+ in the US, Netflix in the UK and to rent digitally in Australia
Daniel Plainview – There Will Be Blood
As spirit animals go, Daniel Plainview isn’t one you’d immediately race to adopt from the pound, but there’s something irresistibly bracing about his approach. Rare is the week in which the line “I can’t keep doing this on my own, with these … people” doesn’t pop into my conscious. Yes, he’s flawed – a cold-hearted, child-abandoning, resource-sucking murderer, etc, etc – but he’s also exhilaratingly focused and honest (clue is in the name). He’s also, just to play literal devil’s advocate, very good at his job, at times a sweet and loving parent, and, when it comes to false prophets at least, bang on the money. Quentin Tarantino thinks There Will Be Blood doesn’t work because of Paul Dano – nuts, of course, because the film isn’t intended as a two-hander (and Dano is great anyway). What’s certain is that the movie wouldn’t work were its tar-hearted antihero not also funny, formidable and – whisper it – relatable. Plus: loves bowling! Catherine Shoard
- There Will Be Blood is available on Paramount+ in the US and UK and Stan in Australia
Charles Foster Kane – Citizen Kane
Charles Foster Kane is the towering blueprint for so many cynical and enduring cinematic figures we are simultaneously enthralled and repulsed by. Think Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood or Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, characters who exist a century apart, and in Kane’s shadow, embodying an American dream that is insatiable, corruptible and often fuelled by contempt. For at least half a century, Citizen Kane had been widely named the greatest film of all time (chiefly on the Sight & Sound critics poll), largely celebrated for its form (its use of deep focus taught in almost every intro to film class). But the film’s emotional power comes from Orson Welles’s enigmatic portrayal of the predatory and rather pathetic Kane, the media baron inspired by William Randolph Hearst, and admired by Donald Trump. Kane preaches about speaking truth to power, but only insofar as it serves him. His youthful idealism and principles are as thin as and disposable (literally) as the paper they’re printed on. It’s easy to be seduced by his ambitions, not to mention the bluster and silky-smooth charisma he so skilfully weaponizes, before it all sours and curdles – you know, like the American dream. Radheyan Simonpillai
- Citizen Kane is available to rent digitally in the US, on the BFI Player and iPlayer in the UK, and to rent digitally in Australia
Marla Grayson – I Care a Lot
If Rosamund Pike were standing in front of a decimated building holding a bomb detonator, telling me she didn’t do anything, I could believe her. There’s a je ne sais quoi to her characters’ malice that invites you into different definitions of right and wrong – where the bottom line matters and a vicious heart is still a heart. Like she did in Gone Girl, Pike – with a velvet voice and razor-sharp bob – plugs self-righteousness into I Care a Lot’s Marla Grayson to become a perfect stone-cold but sweet-smiling antihero. In the 2020 crime thriller, Grayson is a court-appointed legal guardian who’s like an aggressive leech: sucking vulnerable, helpless elderly people dry of their savings; she’s more sharp-tongued and seasoned than first-time killer Amy Dunne in Gone Girl, and at almost every point you don’t know if she’s going to go in for a comforting hug or if she’s going to bait an old person into attacking her (both happen). Grayson expounds on a nasty, quiet part of greed within many of us: if you could take money from someone for yourself, if no one would really know – if you’re beautiful and have experienced love and are devilishly self-aware – it’s OK to force drugs into a man’s body or to convince a judge someone is going senile. It’s a heinous thing, being a predator of the lowest rungs, but when Pike appalls you, she supplies a little thrill with it: you feel a little more alive. Tammy Tarng
- I Care a Lot is available on Netflix in the US and Amazon Prime in the UK and Australia
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