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Wednesday, June 17, 2009
4 Children Allegedly 'Electrocuted'
By Clara Garcia
LOS CHAVEZ — Members of a Valencia County family are being held on child abuse charges after four young children were allegedly tied to chairs and shocked using an electric fence control box.
Kimberly Galczynski, 24, Anthony Welker, 22, Brenda Mundo, 50, and Gerald Tunnell, 53, all of Los Chavez, have each been charged with four counts of child abuse, four counts of kidnapping and two counts of conspiracy.
All have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Magistrate Judge John "Buddy" Sanchez ordered that all four defendants — Galczynski, the mother of the children; Welker, her husband and father of three of the children; Galczynski's mother, Mundo; and Mundo's husband, Tunnell — be jailed on a $1 million cash-only bond.
Sheriff Rene Rivera said the four were arrested Friday after investigators learned that two boys and two girls, ages 3 and 6 and a pair of 4-year-olds, had allegedly been abused.
According to the criminal complaint, deputies were asked to investigate the case by the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department.
During the Sheriff's Department's initial investigation May 28, two items of evidence were seized — a brown leather belt with silver duct tape on it and an orange electric fence control box with green wires. All four children were taken into state custody at that time.
According to the complaint, Galczynski told detectives that it was Tunnell, her mother's husband, who abused the children. She said Tunnell would make the children put their hands on the kitchen table and whip them with a belt. "She says that (Tunnell) has duct taped the kids to the chair, with towels over their faces, and electrocuted them," according to the criminal complaint.
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