Shocking moment dad is told on live TV that his missing son had been found in his basement
Callum Jones
Featured Image Credit: HLN
A father was left speechless after being told on live TV that his missing son had been found alive in his basement, tripping over his words as he tried to explain how the boy got there.
Detroit dad Charles Bothuell IV made headlines in 2014 after he reported his son Charles Bothuell V, then 12, as a missing person.
The infamous case lead to the FBI embarking on a 11-day search to find the boy.
Bothuell IV was live on HLN at the time when host Nancy Grace found out during the interview that the boy had been discovered in Bothuell IV's basement.
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The father was stunned to silence, before Grace asked Bothuell IV: "Sir, did you check your basement?"
He said: "I've checked the basement, the FBI has checked the basement, the Detroit Police checked my basement, my wife checked my basement."
Charles Bothuell IV went viral after the interview as reports suggested he knew his son was in the basement all along - something the father dubbed as 'absurd'.
As Bothuell IV said on-air, the FBI had checked the basement, so it's believed the boy must have moved there at some point afterwards.
According to court documents, the 12-year-old claimed his stepmother Monique Dillard-Bothuell had sent him to the basement and told him 'not to come out, no matter what he hears'.
Bothuell IV was accused of forcing his son to complete a gruelling workout twice a day, which included 100 push-ups, 200 sit-ups and 100 jumping jacks, as per court documents.
The child also allegedly had to curl 25-pound weights and do 5,000 revolutions on an exercise machine, and if he didn't finish in less than an hour, he had to do the whole thing again.
Bothuell IV and Dillard-Bothuell were arrested and charged with torture and second-degree child abuse in 2015, with the former being dismissed in court.
The father pleaded guilty to fourth-degree child abuse in exchange for the removal of the second-degree child-abuse charges in 2016.
Bothuell IV admitted to beating his son with a PVC pipe and was handed 18 months of probation and mandatory anger management classes.
He also lost custody of his son and was not permitted to have further contact with him. Dillard-Bothuell's case was dismissed.