Accused child abuser: 'I just hit him once'
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VANCOUVER, Wash. -- A Vancouver couple told jurors Thursday that they never beat their adopted twins with a wooden board.
Jeffrey Weller admitted that he had hit his son once as discipline, but did nothing more.
“I just hit him once,” he said. “It was just a tap. It wasn’t a ‘come back and try to blister the kid.’”
He denied ever following orders from his wife, Sandra Weller, to beat their children.
The Wellers were the defense’s only witnesses. They are charged with imprisoning, starving and beating their adopted teenage twins. Following their testimony, attorneys presented their closing arguments late in the afternoon.
Jurors will return to court on Friday morning to begin deliberations.
Before Jeffrey Weller’s testimony, Sandra Weller took the stand and also denied having any involvement in assaulting her children.
Did she ever strike any of her children or see her husband strike them?
“I saw him use a belt one time,” Sandra Weller said, referring to the couple’s discipline methods.
Other than that, Sandra Weller said she never hit her children, explaining she has post-traumatic stress disorder.
Earlier in the day, the Wellers’ 15-year-old biological son told a much different story.
He said that he snuck food for his adopted twin siblings, so they wouldn’t starve. He also described what happened if the Wellers caught the kids taking food from one of the locked kitchen cabinets.
The teen cited one night when he overhead a beating in the kitchen.
“One night I heard smacking and screaming,” he testified. “So I went halfway down the stairs and looked over the balcony and I saw Jeff hitting (one of the twins) with a board.”
If your going to do something wrong and try and get away with it, you should both have the same story!!!!!!!!!!!! These two need to beat and sent to jail for a very long time.
The damning testimony came from their biological children.
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Long sentence, coming up.
Yep, Your go'en to jail. see ya, have a nice time.
Once is too many times
Yeah, that's what my dad said when I finally called the cops, too.
I am not a very violent person but I would like to hit him "just once".Â
They should have Got a New Daddy:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNR-x1net-A
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 @Dr. Rawdog If you are starved, beaten, tortured, would you keep your room clean? AND there was no electricity or heat in the room. They slept on the floor. They were given saurkraut topped with shortening to eat and the mother put dead and alive flies in their food. Now, go clean your room.Â
   By the way, you post the most clueless comments on every article.Â
@KKStJohn @Dr. Rawdog because he's a troll...by responding you are just feeding the beast.
 @Dr. Rawdog Would you? I would not do anything for those parents. IT was there way to have control. "their room, ". Who knows, maybe the mother wanted them to live in that squalor as another of her many "productive" punishments. Come on.. They were placed in that very same room with the door "locked" for 15 minutes after straight bleach was poured on the floor. You have to be there to hear ALL the testimony
There are REASONS why God makes some people unable to have children....
Separate cells, please!
now is some really wants to know my wrath, beat a kid and call them names in front of me..I swear, the police better get there fast...because I won't hold the angry mob back..an it will be declared that the POS abusing a kid had "multiple accidents"
Greed=abuse. As long as the money kept coming in why should they care about these kids?? I have heard every excuse these folks could possibly say that anyone would believe as a sheriff and they need to go ba-bye!!! Adios as I flip you the 10 fingers=10 of these, I...
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 @Dr. Rawdog Adoptive parents receive about $1,500 per month per adopted child or foster child.Â
Waiting for the guilty verdict and a just sentence, which should be death IMO but I'm sure they'll get a year and probation or some such. At least the kids are away from them. It's clear to me they only "adopted" these twins for the state paycheck or just their own sick devices.Â
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My dad felt that beating the crap out of me for every little thing was a great way to raise a kid. It woked great (for him) until I turned 16 and hit 175lbs and six feet tall. Then during a belting session I snapped and put him in the hospital. Off to JDH I went, it was all my fault of course. Drugs and crime were my next occupation. Thank god I had a teacher who intervened before I killed myself, which was going t happen. I'm a father now and while I get frustrated with my kids, I have never laid a hand on them in anger. You get a short term compliance and long-term resentment. That's it. And once your kid is big, what punishment tool do you have left? Nothing.Â
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 @Red Five Yes. Proud of you for standing your ground against perpetuating the cycle of abuse over the generations. Keep up the good work.
@Red Five Kudos to you for stopping the vicious cycle.I had my share of blisters on my rear end as a young kid at the hands of my overly militant *christian* father.It has stayed with me decades later.
 @Red Five Very well said.
Interesting how his own biological son refers to the father as "Jeff." That says a lot. Someone's clearly lying here, and I believe the kids. I hope these two beasts go down hard. I hope they never see or feel the sun ever again.
I am proud of that biological son and brother to the twins. You are a good kid for telling the truth, and your siblings good too for helping them. The only way abused can find justice in situations like this is if the kids do act as witnesses. Their photo looks like two normal people. But looks can be deceiving. Their biological children wouldn't turn on their parents if it were not true. I am always proud to see children acting responsible towards others, and caring when adults fail to do that for them. It takes a lot of guts to testify against abusive parent(s) and the scars will stick to everyone involved, but it takes real courage to stand up when people dont believe in you because you are just a kid, and to say that adults (who look normal enough) are doing something wrong, even when they are punished. One thing could be happening is something taken out of proportion, such as the big beating was a single event. That sort of thing happened once with my sister and she called the cops on my parents. It was a valid reason in my own day and age for her to be spanked as she was, but times change and her situation was very different. What was happening here was the children were locked up and being starved. Whether they were beaten cruelly once or multiple times does not negate the other abuse charges. I would like to say rot in hell to those on trial, but that is disrespectful to the kids and their love of their parents. Thanks for sticking up for your adopted brother and sister, that's very honorable and mature thing to do.
 @Mrs. T A very mature and positive response. Kudos to you and the kids.. I think it was said in the prosecuting attorney's statement... Familly... there was family - a family of the kids. They came together to do what was right. Amazing after all the abuse they witnessed and endured.
 @Mrs. T No beatings. No way. No how. No more.
I'm reading here, but I'm not willing to make any judgement call on which people are telling the truth. The accusations are horrifying, yes - but I'm not so certain about the truthfulness of the accusers. Not after reading that the twins admitted that the reason they didn't have electricity in a bedroom was because they deliberately shorted it out with wire!
That's equally horrifying to me - to put the whole family at risk of death from a house fire? I mean, what the hell?
I'm uncomfortable with this story all the way around. It gives off vibes of The Good Son.Â
 @starshadow I'm glad you aren't on the jury.Â
 @starshadow Based on what you read, I can see that.. That is why I keep saying go to the trial to get the "truth" from all sides. Better yet, buy the audio cd from it. Know "all" the facts before deciding and that is what the jury will do today. The "jury of their peers" will evaluate all the evidence. I only hope justice will be served
 @starshadow It is hard to believe the horror of this but get a grip and look closely at ALL the evidence. These kids have no reason to lie in this situation. They, if anything, are probably still too disassociated from PTSD and their whole lives being abused to even recognize and name half of the horrible things done to them as the others flood their consciousness. The world DOES have some really really abusive humans in it and a lot more than you have thus known. It is sad, it is scary, it is outrageous...but it IS REAL. Don't doubt these poor, traumatized and recovering kids. I can tell you for sure having worked with survivors that they are just a particularly awful tip of a horrible HUGE iceberg of child abuse in the world.
 @starshadow The twins' malnourishment, the locked food cabinets and bloody board are pretty objective evidence. Hard to explain that evidence away, and it all supports the kids' version of events.
 @StealthActivist  @starshadow And the fact that the parents have NO witnesses in their favor.Â
Spanking a child, even with a belt or a willow stick is one thing, beating a child with anything is another. Â Most kids need spanking once in a while and it does no harm to them. Â It probably does a lot of good. Â It gives them an idea of what the real world is, not some sugar coated place where everything is good. Â I'd be willing to bet that most bullies have never been spanked. Â They can get away with anything at home and because the parents don't want to ruin their child's innocent world, punishment of any kind that works is out of the question.
 @Shadow Spanking a child is illegal. You could be turned in to CPS and prosecuted for hitting a child. If you are "spanking" your kids you are assaulting them.Â
 @KKStJohn  Are you an attorney? You seem very well versed in the law.
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HA. Just kidding.
 @KKStJohnActually, not true.
 @ShadowMost adults who were not spanked have come up just fine. More adults who were hit as kids did not. Look in any prison or jail and be amazed at the amount of childhood abuse and spankings and beatings these inmates were subjected to. You know: you don't even ( and must NOT) hit a dog to train it and you cannot even speak a common language or reason with a dog... or other animals that can be trained...and yet you think it's OK to whack children?? See the fallacy of your argument here?
 @Shadow It gives them an idea of what the real world is? In the real world, if someone spanks another person against their will, they'll go to jail. It's entirely possible to teach children right from wrong without hitting them ever.
Let's hope these two get justice in jail because it is highly unlikely they will get it from the courts.
Not only the twins story, but their own biological child has same recollection.... Man up and confess....
 @Grammy54 more like have some humility and confess...
 @whirledworld  @Grammy54 More like have a soul and confess...but these two are soulless ghouls.Â
Even if Mr.Weller hit the child "just once", that's one time too many for a child to be forcibly struck.
Excuses, excuses! Take accountability for what you did do, you poor excuse for a human!
To even to be accused of child abuse tells me that they are not doing their jobs as parents. And by the facts presented so far, it appears they need told that by the authorities. Lock em up.