A Minneapolis father has pleaded guilty to sexually and physically assaulting his twin teenage daughters and endangering a third child who lived in the family's home, in what became known as the "house of horrors" case.
Jerry Lee Curry, 52, was arrested a year ago on charges that he subjected his twin daughters, both of whom have developmental disabilities, to years of physical and sexual abuse, impregnating one of them, at the family's home in a quiet south Minneapolis neighborhood. At a hearing Wednesday, he pleaded guilty to felony charges of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, first-degree assault and gross misdemeanor child endangerment.
Curry is expected to be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison at a court hearing scheduled for next Wednesday.
"We are happy that Mr. Curry agreed to plead guilty and accept a long prison term for his crimes," Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said in a statement. "That saved his victims from having to testify and relive the horrific times he put them through. This is one of the most revolting cases I have seen and our prosecution team did a terrific job to bring justice for our victims."
The widely publicized case prompted relatives and neighbors to raise questions about why authorities did not act sooner to rescue the girls from years of abuse, and it reignited concerns that statewide reforms adopted in 2015 had not done enough to improve Minnesota's child protection system. As far back as 2013, the girls told county child welfare workers about being beaten by their father, and police visited the house more than 50 times — often in response to reports of domestic violence, records show.
The twins, now 22, described being repeatedly raped, beaten with bats and chained for days at a time without food. The chains were so tight around one girl's ankles that she developed gangrene and had to undergo surgery, court records show. Clinicians who examined the twins and their scars concluded they had been subjected to abuse that was "clinically diagnostic of torture."
At Wednesday's hearing, Curry admitted that he forced his daughter to have sex with him and that she did it because she knew that if she did not comply, "Curry could seriously hurt her," according to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office. Curry acknowledged that he had hit another daughter so severely that she suffered eye damage. Curry admitted that he struck her so hard that it caused blindness in her left eye, and it is likely she will never recover her vision.
A third daughter, who was only about 10 years old at the time, observed Curry and others physically disciplining the older daughters repeatedly over the span of two years, which caused her mental and emotional harm, according to prosecutors.
