The Urban Jungle: At the End of Their Tether

Arrested for chaining up their wayward daughter, a Bronx couple win sympathy for trying to beat the mean streets

In New York City parents are usually arrested for trying to kill their children, not for trying to save them. So when police were tipped off that a couple in the Bronx were keeping their daughter chained to a radiator, they moved in, figuring that they would be rescuing the girl and preventing a tragedy. Maria and Eliezer Marrero were hauled off in handcuffs; bail was set at $100,000, a sum fit for a murderer; and their daughter Linda, 15, landed in a foster-care center in Queens.

None of this would be especially remarkable, except that by the end of the...

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