The jury did not return a verdict in the Wimbush trial Thursday.
The jury of four black women, two white women and six white men deliberated for more than four hours before telling Judge Deborah R. Fluker they had not yet made a decision on the charges that Recardo Wimbush and Therian Wimbush are facing.
The married couple are charged with child abuse and false imprisonment for keeping their oldest son in a small basement room for 18 months and keeping another son from medical care while a malignant skin tumor grew on his abdomen. They represented themselves at the trial, in which closing arguments were heard Thursday.
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The Wimbushes never disputed that they kept their oldest son the basement for a year and a half or that they did not seek medical attention for the younger son’s malignant cancer. They maintained that it was their son’s idea to live in the basement of their Buford home as a punishment for lying and taking things without permission.
Recardo Wimbush and Therian Wimbush also did not dispute that the children did not go to the doctor regularly. In her closing statement, Therian Wimbush said the tumor had just been a “small bump” when the younger son was in her custody and that her son never seemed ill.
The AJC is not identifying the children by name because they are alleged victims of abuse.
In his closing argument, Gwinnett County Assistant District Attorney Dan Mayfield called both the Wimbushes and their alleged crimes “evil.” He described a house where the older son lived in fear of his parents and was largely closed off from the outside world. The children were homeschooled and did not interact with many people outside of the family.
The jury will reconvene Friday morning at 9 a.m.
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