The 'most wanted' Mississippi couple with manslaughter charges was arrested at a mall in Oregon after 5-year manhunt, officials said Wednesday.
Janet and Ramon Barreto, two among the '15 Most Wanted' list of the U.S. Marshals Service were arrested Tuesday. According to Deputy U.S. Marshal Jamaal Thompson, they were wanted on the charges including manslaughter of a child, child abuse and neglect. Janet is the only woman on the 'most wanted' list.
The U.S. Marshals in Oxford, Mississippi acted on a tip-off and held the couple in Portland, Oregon. The person who informed the officials also said that the suspects might have an infant with them. The officers then tracked the Barretos down at the Jantzen Beach Center mall around 5:15 p.m., Thompson said.
The officials said that the couple left an adopted 2-year-old daughter Ena Barreto at a northern Mississippi hospital in 2008, telling the medical authorities the toddler fell from a shopping cart. The child was shifted to a children's hospital in Memphis where she later died.
The Barretos are also accused of abusing seven other adopted children under the age of 5. All the children were adopted from Central America and one 3-year-old child weighed just 20 pounds, reports the Hattiesburg American.
"The children were purportedly often punished with beatings and on various occasions duct-taped to their beds, punched in the stomach and forced to endure having their heads submerged under water," Thompson said.
The search for Janet and Ramon began after they skipped bail in 2009 on the given charges. In 2008, one of the adopted children died, allegedly due to abuse. The Barretos' daughter, Marainna Torres, was convicted in her sister's death, reports the Associated Press.
The couple were taken to the Multnomah County Detention Center in Portland and are awaiting extradition. Thompson said they found an infant with the couple.