An investigation revealed that the boy was kept away from his family in a hotel room that was used for storage, regularly deprived of food and drink and subjected to military exercises and other abuses, according to the statement. Police found several items used as weapons against the child, the statement added. The 11-year-old boy and his family were at the restaurant Mrs. Potato in Orlando on January 1, 2021, when employee Flaviane Carvalho noticed that he was sitting isolated from his parents and brother, deprived of food and drink and bruises and scratches, CNN previously reported. Carvalho stood behind the boy’s parents and held a note asking the boy if he was okay. When the child nodded, he wrote a second note asking, “Do you need help?” He explained in a press conference. After the boy nodded, Carvalho called her boss and then called 911.
After police arrived and questioned the child, Wilson was arrested at the restaurant and the boy’s mother, Kristen Swann, was taken into custody days later, Orlando investigators said. Swann faces multiple charges of child abuse, including child neglect, aggravated abuse and failure to report child abuse, according to records from the office of the Orange County clerk. He has pleaded not guilty. CNN turned to Swann’s lawyer for comment. Wilson will be sentenced on August 19, 2022. CNN contacted his lawyer to comment on the verdict.

What the police found after the parents’ arrests

When Swann and Wilson were arrested, another 4-year-old was removed from the home and found not to have been abused, according to Orlando Police Detective Erin Lawler at the time of the arrests. Lawler said the 11-year-old is Swann’s child and the 4-year-old is Swann and Wilson’s child. After Carvalho called 911, the boy was taken to a hospital where he was found to be 20 pounds underweight for his age, according to Lawler, who added that the boy also had bruises at various stages of healing throughout his body. Investigators later found that the boy had been “tortured” and “punished maliciously”, according to a statement from the prosecutor’s office. Prosecutors said the boy had been hung upside down by a door from his neck and legs and in one case had been handcuffed to a pram. “What this kid went through was torture,” Lawler said. “I am a mother and seeing what this 11-year-old had to go through ει Shocks your soul”. “If Ms. Carvalho hadn’t said something when she saw it, this little boy probably wouldn’t have been with us for long,” he added. “They used me as a tool from God to help him,” Carvalho told CNN’s WESH. “We have to pay attention to those who (need) and move on to do something to change the situation.” CNN’s Hollie Silverman contributed to this report.