Emaciated Girl Taunted With Rotten Food While Tied Up With Only Her Head Showing
Autumn Lee Hallow was born on August 24, 2011, in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. She was the second child of Brett Jason Hallow and Kelsey Cruz. According to her mother, Autumn gave the best hugs. Her brother, Noah, was just 11 months older, and they were very close. She had five other siblings: Marshall, Lincoln, Delilah, Bentley, and Cadence. Autumn had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a dimpled smile. She was described as a kind, energetic, and helpful little girl. She did well in school and liked to sing, dance, and put on shows. She also liked to draw, color, and write special notes for her family. She loved the outdoors and was passionate about gymnastics, often jumping and doing cartwheels for fun.
A Fractured Family Dynamic
Kelsey was 17 when she met Brett at Ivan Sands High School in Elk River, located about 34 miles northwest of Minneapolis. The couple had their first child, Noah, on September 20, 2010. Just three months later, Kelsey found herself pregnant again, and Autumn was born six weeks premature. According to Kelsey, Brett was charming at first. However, the couple split up in early 2013 when she realized he had been unfaithful during their four-year relationship.
Kelsey and her two children moved in with her parents, and Brett had visitation every other weekend at his mother’s house. Monetarily, Kelsey provided everything—paying for clothes, bedding, groceries, and anything the children needed. In 2013, she filed for child support; however, if Brett had partial custody, his child support would be reduced. This is perhaps why he took Kelsey to court in late 2013. Kelsey agreed to 50/50 custody, switching every week on Sunday, and they both followed this agreement for several years.
Brett’s New Life and Escalating Conflict
Brett soon began dating a single mother named Sarah K. Nasby. The pair married in 2017 and later had two sons. Sarah had an interesting history with the legal system. In 2013, she was charged with two fourth-degree felonies: one for physically assaulting a police officer and the second for assaulting a police officer by bodily harm or by throwing bodily fluid or feces. Sarah also had a habit of filing restraining orders against people.
While dropping off the kids one Sunday, Kelsey brought a gift from Brett’s mom. According to Sarah, Kelsey shoved the gift into her shoulder, but according to Kelsey, Sarah threw the gift back at her and kicked her. A week later, a sheriff’s deputy showed up at Kelsey’s home with a restraining order. Allegedly, Kelsey had ripped the stitches Sarah had from a recent surgery. There was no hearing, and no one heard Kelsey’s side of the story. In addition to a restraining order against Kelsey, Sarah had one against her own parents. She had also threatened to file an order against Brett’s mom. Sarah also used the court system to gain additional control; she convinced Judge Mary Junker that Brett had unspecified disabilities that caused him to have seizures whenever Kelsey was communicating with him. The judge issued an order that all communication would have to go through Sarah. Kelsey was never shown any proof of these seizures and, in the many years she had known Brett, never once saw him suffer from one.
A Pattern of Neglect and Failed Intervention
Brett and Sarah were living in the Depot at Elk River Station apartment complex on 172nd Avenue in Elk River. It was a three-story complex, and they lived on the second floor in apartment 214. They lived there with Sarah’s daughter from a previous relationship and two sons. Autumn and her brother, Noah, lived there when they weren’t with their mother.
In 2016, the right side of Noah’s cheek was bruised and swollen when Kelsey picked him up. Brett said Noah had fallen while playing and hit his face. Later, while getting ready for bed, Autumn said Sarah hit Noah for having an accident in his pants, which Noah confirmed. When Sarah hit him, she said he fell back and hit the bed frame. CPS investigated, but Sarah said she had merely grazed his lips with two fingertips. She said he flinched and fell on his own. As is the case with many of the stories that we cover, CPS took no further action.
In 2019, neighbors in the apartment complex began reporting upsetting sounds coming from apartment 214. Police were called to the apartment at least 30 times from February 2019 to August 2020, but they did next to nothing. On February 12, 2019, police responded to a report of someone yelling at a child. Brett and Sarah told the officers that one of the kids was sick, which caused the screaming; also, they said Brett was playing a video game online and had gotten a little loud. According to the officers, the children seemed fine.
The Scapegoating of Noah and Autumn
Sometime in early 2019, Noah came home with bruises on his chin that looked like fingerprints and a bruised eye. This time, a school counselor reported the injuries to CPS. A social worker interviewed both kids at school and suggested Kelsey keep the kids while the situation was investigated. However, the investigation closed in two weeks after CPS claimed that Noah’s story had changed. Noah was ordered to go back to visit his dad, and Brett and Sarah took Kelsey to court alleging contempt. Judge Junker agreed and gave the kids to them for five weeks to make up the time they had spent with her during the investigation. Neither Brett nor Sarah were working at this time, and Kelsey had to pay them child support.
Noah told the counselor he was scared to go back to his dad’s house. He said he was being forced to stay up all night and clean, then go to school the next day without any sleep. He described being forced to swallow liquid dish soap. He was locked in a bedroom for hours for not doing his chores. He was being hit, had to sleep on the floor without a pillow or blanket, and was not allowed to read or color. He had to sit perfectly still. If Sarah caught him sleeping, he said she made him stick out his tongue and she would push on his head to make him bite on his own tongue.
Kelsey believed Noah, but no one else was listening. She negotiated with Brett to help keep Noah safe. She agreed to give up time with Autumn; Autumn would spend three weeks with her dad and then one week with Kelsey. Noah was supposed to do the opposite—three weeks with his mom and one week with Brett—but he never returned to his father’s home. She thought Autumn would be safe. What the little girl said, it sounded like Brett and Sarah focused all of their punishment on Noah. Noah said the same thing; it was clearly scapegoating.
The Final Descent
Once Noah was no longer around, it seemed that Autumn became the new family scapegoat. On January 1, 2020, an anonymous caller reported a female child yelling and pounding on the walls. When the police arrived, it was quiet and no one would answer the door.
On August 13, 2020, police and EMS responded to a call regarding an unresponsive child. When they arrived at apartment 214, they found the stepmother performing chest compressions on Autumn’s stiff body. Sarah’s first story to the officers was that Autumn had said she was going to take a shower. About 40 minutes later, Sarah said she went in to check on her. She claimed that she found Autumn face down in inches of water. Brett said Sarah’s screams woke him and he helped move her from the bathtub to the bedroom floor. Autumn’s skin was dry, and her hair was only a little wet, which didn’t match being face down in inches of water. The little girl was pronounced dead at the scene. She was just 8 years old.
Autumn’s body told a very different story than what Sarah shared with the first responders. She was emaciated, frail, and covered in injuries. She was missing patches of her hair. Her fingers were blue. She had abrasions and pin-like marks on her forehead. Based on the condition of her body, paramedics believed she had been dead for some time.
A Horrific Truth Revealed
One of Brett and Sarah’s sons, who was 6 years old at the time, told police that his parents would tie Autumn up with a belt and put her in a red sleeping bag with only her head exposed. He said they would also use a long gray shirt to tie her hands behind her back. He said they would do this after she was being “bad” by urinating on the floor in her clothing or trying to get food. The boy also said Autumn was often restrained overnight in the living room, the kitchen, or in the bathtub. Sarah’s 10-year-old daughter made similar claims, saying Autumn was tied up when she misbehaved. She said she heard Autumn screaming that day and then heard a loud bang. The girl also claimed she saw blood in the bathroom.
Thirty-year-old Brett and 20-year-old Sarah were arrested the next day on August 14. On June 21, 2021, the pair pled guilty to second-degree homicide and first-degree manslaughter with aggravating circumstances. The details they admitted to are truly horrifying. They had set up a surveillance camera in their own apartment; not only had they tortured Noah and Autumn, they filmed this torture.
The evidence revealed that Autumn had been starved and beaten. She was often confined to the bathroom for days at a time. Some days, Sarah made her do chores for up to six hours a day. When she wasn’t doing chores, she spent the majority of her time tied up in the bathroom. Brett admitted Autumn was tied up using a gray sweatshirt and bound to the wall using a belt. He also said the other children were told to ignore Autumn because paying any attention to her would make Sarah angry.
By August 2020, Autumn was hardly able to stand on her own and could barely speak. She was underweight and fragile. According to her autopsy report, she was already suffering from internal bleeding in her belly; her bowel had been perforated. Autumn’s autopsy found fatal injuries pointing to asphyxiation and blunt force trauma. She had been beaten and suffocated badly. She had puncture wounds on the top of her head. Her hips and hands were bruised. She had abdominal bleeding from the perforated bowel that had probably been making her throw up for at least a couple of days. She had bleeding in her brain. She weighed a mere 33 lbs, which is what she weighed when she was 4 years old. A healthy 8-year-old should be at least 70 lbs. She was malnourished and dehydrated. Her muscles were atrophied from the long periods of time she spent tied up and confined.
Brett and Sarah were sentenced on September 23, 2021. They were both given a 40-year divided sentence. This means they have to serve 27 years in prison and 160 months (a little over 13 years) of supervised release. Sarah also pled guilty to threatening violence against Noah, admitting she told him she would put his head through a wall in 2019. She received an additional 12 months to her sentence for this.
