A 7-year-old girl was forced by her stepmother to do housework until she collapsed from exhaustion and bleeding. Her father, a soldier, suddenly returned home, saw his daughter and screamed…
The faint sound of a child’s sob echoed through the narrow hallway of a modest suburban house in North Carolina. Seven-year-old Lila Morgan struggled to stand, her small hands trembling as she tried to scrub the tiled kitchen floor. Her stepmother, Diana, stood over her with a cold, emotionless stare, holding a wooden spoon like a weapon of control. “Faster,” she snapped. “You’re too slow. Do you want your father to see how lazy you are?”
