AIRWAY HEIGHTS, Wash. — An Airway Heights couple faces charges for allegedly holding a teenage girl against her will for several days, strangling her and refusing to feed her.

Court documents show that Airway Heights police responded to a welfare call on Friday, Nov. 21, after a neighbor called police to report that a teen girl came to their door and asked for help.

The girl told police that a man and his girlfriend, later identified as Elina Stephen and Nickelson Hernest, had kept her locked in a room for three days without any food. The teen also claimed the man had tried to strangle her when she refused to unlock her cell phone, which she was using to try to call her mother.

Court documents show that police noticed signs of malnutrition and bruises on her neck, and the girl's school

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