Bluffton couple abused six of their children for years. Now, they’re both going to prison
A Bluffton couple was sentenced to prison this week for abusing and starving six of their children for years.
Yulanda Mitchell, 53, of Bluffton pleaded guilty Tuesday to 11 counts of unlawful conduct toward a child. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to a release from the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office.
Her husband, Herbert Bernard Mitchell, 58, was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to 11 counts of unlawful conduct toward a child.
The Solicitor’s Office said five of the six children were adopted by the Mitchells. They ranged in age from 5 to 13. One was a biological child of Herbert Mitchell, the office said.
“The kids were routinely beaten. They were locked in two rooms: boys in one room, girls in the other,” said an adoptive mother of one of the older children who used to live in the Mitchell household. She shared information with The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette on the condition of anonymity in fear of retribution from the Mitchell family.
“They were in there 90 percent of the time. They were usually only given one meal a day, possibly two, depending on Yulanda’s mood,” she said.
The Solicitor’s Office said Yulanda Mitchell was the main abuser.
According to her indictment filed in court last year, Mitchell would often hit the children with her fist, a ruler and a belt. She bent their fingers backwards, “causing [them] to touch [their] wrist.” The document also said she made the children sleep on the floor or locked them in a room without access to a bathroom or food.
Yulanda Mitchell would direct her husband to beat the children when she became too tired, the adoptive mother said.
The children got most of their sustenance from the everyday school lunches they received. They were forced to steal “from trash containers, from food left-over by other kids, and from other children’s lunch boxes,” according to the adoptive mother’s victim impact statement, which was delivered in court Tuesday.
The children lived with the Mitchells until 2016, when the Department of Social Services pulled them out.
One of the couple’s older biological children was booked into the Beaufort County Detention Center on a charge of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, accused of yelling profanities and threatening the new families of the Mitchell children who gave court statements Tuesday, a police report said.
The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette typically do not name those charged with a misdemeanor.
The adoptive mother noted in her victim impact statement that the ordeal had taken an emotional toll on her adopted son, four years after he was taken away.
“It’s clear that these memories are not only painful because of what they did to him,” it said. “But because he is haunted that he was unable to protect his younger brothers and sisters from the Mitchells’ brutal actions.”
This story was originally published October 22, 2020 at 4:30 AM.
