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Man finds out that his missing son was found in his basement on live TV

Home> News> US News

Published 16:57 13 Jan 2024 GMT

Man finds out that his missing son was found in his basement on live TV

A Detroit dad was seemingly shocked as he discovered that his missing son was found in the basement.

Callum Jones

Callum Jones

This is the moment a man found out that his missing son had been found alive in his basement.

Detroit dad Charles Bothuell IV once made all the headlines after he that reported his son Charles Bothuell V, 12, as missing in 2014.

The case went as far as reaching the FBI as part of an 11-day search to find the boy.

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Thankfully, Bothuell V was found, but it was certainly in a location you'd least expect:

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.

Several seconds of stunned silence followed, before Grace asked Bothuell IV: "Sir, did you check your basement?"

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He said: "I've checked the basement, the FBI has checked the basement, the Detroit Police checked my basement, my wife has checked the basement.

"We've all searched my basement multiple times."

After the interview, Charles Bothuell IV was bombarded by the press as he returned home, saying that reports he knew his son was in the basement all along are 'absurd'.

So how did the pre-teen come to be found on Bothuell IV's own property?

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The man appeared shocked when he found out his missing son was in the basement.
YouTube/ HLN

A police investigation followed and they found that the 12-year-old boy was never lost at all - and was just hiding from his father and stepmother, Monique Dillard-Bothuell.

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.

When Charles Bothuell V was found, he admitted that he hid in the basement because he was scared of the reaction his father was going to have when he realised he hadn't exercised.

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According to court documents, Bothuell IV forced the boy to complete a gruelling workout twice a day, which included 100 push-ups, 200 sit-ups and 100 jumping jacks.

He also allegedly has 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.

Charles Bothuell IV was convicted in 2016.
YouTube/ HLN

In April 2015, the couple were arrested and charged with torture and second-degree child abuse.

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The torture charge was later dismissed in court. If proven, the couple could have faced life sentences.

At the trial in 2016, Bothuell IV pleaded guilty to fourth-degree child abuse in exchange for the removal of the second-degree child-abuse charges.

Prosecutors revealed that Bothuell V was very thin and had marks on his body when he was found.

Bothuell IV admitted to beating his son with a PVC pipe and handed 18 months of probation and mandatory anger management classes.

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He also lost custody of his son and was no longer allowed to have further contact with him.

His wife, Dillard-Bothuell, reportedly accepted a plea deal too but the details of this were not made public.

Featured Image Credit: HLN

Topics: Crime, US News, News

Callum Jones
Callum Jones

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