Mom of 15, who faked death after allegedly boiling newborn puppies, found alive behind false wall
A New Mexico mom of 15 who faked her death after defying probation restraints in a horrific child abuse case — including allegations she boiled newborn puppies in front of her kids — was found alive in a false wall at her husband’s Colorado trailer.
Martha Crouch, 58, was discovered in Huerfano County, Colo., nearly 250 miles east of her Aztec home.
She was busted after Colorado police responded to reports of a man suffering a medical emergency in a yard outside a trailer Aug. 17.
When cops arrived, they found Crouch’s husband, Timothy, 62, dead on the lawn, according to KRDO.
When one of his adult daughters learned of the death, she told authorities there were siblings in the trailer being abused and urged them to return.
Colorado police then connected Crouch to his wife, for whom they learned there was an arrest warrant in New Mexico dating back to 2021 for violating probation and then vanishing.
That probation stemmed from horrific child and animal abuse charges, to which she pleaded guilty in 2019 before arriving at a plea deal two years later on one felony charge.
The mom was accused by some of her kids of beating them with kitchen tools, chaining one to a bedpost to force her to lose weight, and fatally shooting one of their dogs as punishment. She also allegedly forced the kids to watch as she fatally boiled four newborn puppies in the kitchen.
One of her daughters also alleged that after becoming pregnant at 14, the mom beat her so severely that she miscarried.
The husband, meanwhile, faced charges of hiding his wife and four of his children from the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department during its investigation of alleged abuse, according to the Farmington Daily Times.
When police returned to the trailer with a warrant, they were met by one of the Crouch children, who said their mom had died years before, and that a teenage sister had gone missing three years prior.
Police then searched the trailer, and acting on a tip from a neighbor, found a false wall where Martha Crouch was hiding alongside the supposedly missing 14-year-old daughter.
The mom was arrested on an outstanding warrant, and also hit with new misdemeanor child abuse charges, and obstructing police during their investigation.
She is being held in a Colorado jail on $5,000 bond.
