Elijah W. King

By Josh Lanier From Daily Voice

A Connecticut father said he was only trying to reprimand his four young children in the ways of a "Christian conservative." His family and police say it was child abuse.

Elijah W. King, 26, of Ledyard, was arrested and charged this week with three counts of risk of injury to a minor, two counts of intentional cruelty to persons, and one count of disorderly conduct, Ledyard police said.

The allegations came from King’s sister, who told police she saw repeated abuse inside the family’s Gales Ferry home. She said King's wife would do nothing to stop it.

Police said she gave written statements and video clips showing her brother's punishment of his kids: a 4-year-old, a 3-year-old, a 1-year-old boy, and a six-month-old daughter. 

In one video, police said the two oldest boys crawled and crab-walked up and down the sloped driveway in 50-degree weather while he sprayed them with a hose from only a few feet away. Officers said the younger child could be heard crying and breathing hard, according to an arrest warrant.

She also told police her brother wrestled with the boys and put them in headlocks until they were "gasping for air." She said he spanked the boys for "disrespecting him” and did it “with the equivalent force that one would use against a grown man," the arrest warrant said. He allegedly struck one child so hard that it could be heard over a running vacuum. 

His sister told police that she believes the boys are punished at least three times a day for "disrepecting" their father. If they cried, he would scold them to "take it like a man," she told police.

She alleged King would spank the children for getting out of bed, even if it was to use the bathroom, and would hit them for wetting the mattresses when they could no longer hold it, according to the arrest report.

King denied the allegations.

He told police that his sister and grandmother, who also lives with them, are "disgruntled with the way we parent,” and described his approach as “conservative Christian.” He also said he “believes in disciplining his kids with physical exercises due to his military background, such as push-ups, sit-ups, and running," the warrant said.

King turned himself in to Ledyard police and was first held on a $500,000 bond. Court records show he was later released on $75,000 bond.