A Louisiana couple is facing charges after investigators say they subjected children in their care to years of physical abuse, with one of them allegedly pointing a gun at a young girl’s head and threatening to kill her.
Daniel Daigle, 38, and Sariee Daigle, 36, were both booked into the Beauregard Parish Jail in DeRidder on charges of cruelty to juveniles, according to jail records reviewed by Law&Crime.
Sariee Daigle is also facing an additional charge of aggravated assault with a firearm, according to a report from KPLC, the local NBC and CW affiliate.
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Incident reports from the Beauregard Parish Sheriff’s Office, reviewed by the station, describe two victims who said they were choked, kicked, punched and struck with objects on a regular basis. The children reportedly said the abuse happened weekly, and that the Daigles would offer false explanations whenever the bruises were noticed by others.
It’s not clear how the suspects and the victims are related.
One of the girls told investigators that Sariee Daigle held a gun to her head on her birthday and threatened to shoot her and then herself. The girl described it as the worst experience of her life, and also said the woman had at another time pressed a knife to her throat and pinned her against a wall by the neck.
According to authorities, the children had disclosed the abuse once before, years earlier, and were placed with a family friend while the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services looked into the claims. That earlier investigation led to an arrest of the couple as well.
The Daigles reportedly dismissed those earlier charges as a misunderstanding, and investigators say the mistreatment didn’t stop.
The case resurfaced this past July, KPLC reported, after one of the children told someone at church that Daniel Daigle had threatened to tear out her earrings. Deputies responded to the family’s home and took Sariee Daigle into custody; Daniel Daigle later surrendered to authorities on his own.
