Ten-year-old girl abused to death

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A 10-year-old girl has suffered the same torment like her mother had, but she was not lucky enough to survive the torturing.

Shirley Deal, 38, fled from what she described as an abusive household several years ago, leaving behind her daughter with her ex-husband and his family.

Last Friday, she found out about the death of the girl, Ame Deal, in Phoenix of United States from an online news portal.

Police said Ame had been placed inside a locked plastic storage box as punishment on July 12, after months of other abuse by adults she was living with.

Four people – the girl's grandmother Judith Deal, 72, aunt Cynthia Stoltzmann, 44, cousin sister Sammantha and her husband John Allen, both 23 - were arrested.

They have been charged with murder, child abuse and kidnapping. But Ame's father David Deal is free.

Shirley said she married David in 1996, and they shared a home with his mother and sister.

She claimed she was abused by the relatives and so, she ran away.

The accused had told police that Ame and other children in her extended family had been playing hide and seek, and they believed the girl must have hidden in the box and accidentally suffocated.

But detectives found that the child had been placed in the box as punishment for taking a frozen treat from a refrigerator.

Investigators said the girl apparently had been put in the box at least five times in recent months for 'misbehaving'.

She also had been beaten with a wooden paddle and been forced to swallow hot sauce and eat dog faeces.

Police said the girl slept on the floor of a stall shower in the home with no blanket or pillow as a disciplinary measure for bed-wetting.

A judge set all their preliminary hearings for Aug 8.