Content warning: This article describes child abuse. Please take care while reading.
Missouri police arrested a woman recently on allegations she abused her foster child and that she tried to trade her foster daughter for a monkey. Multiple reports have stated the suspect, 70-year-old Brenda Deutsch from Winfield, Missouri has fostered more than 200 children for decades and adopted 12. She is also known to collect exotic animals.
In April this year, 2025, Deutsch was arrested and charged with multiple felony counts, including child neglect, abuse, and endangerment. These charges stem from allegations that she physically and emotionally abused a foster child under her care between September 2022 and January 2025.
Specific accusations include hitting the child in the face, causing injury and bleeding, as well as other forms of physical and emotional mistreatment.
According to reports, Deutsch struck the child with a paddle who also said she had also seen Deutsch abuse other children. It’s also alleged Deutsch took the child’s clothing and sent her to psychiatric treatment when she had no symptoms. Meanwhile, Deutsch is accused of sending children to residential treatment facilities as a form of punishment.
The girl was sent to Texas
Police are investigating allegations that Brenda Deutsch, who collects exotic animals, may have traded her foster child in exchange for a monkey. https://t.co/dQum3xmHtr
— KSDK News (@ksdknews) April 8, 2025
According to court documents, the child was sent to Texas to stay with a friend of Deutsch, where she was reportedly left without adequate supervision in “deplorable” unsanitary conditions. The Missouri Department of Social Services received an anonymous tip in November last year, 2024, that the girl was being abused. Her school district reported her missing in February this year, 2025, and they were told she was in Texas. Both reports prompted the Texas Child Protective Services to intervene, according to St. Louis news outlet KSDK.
The monkey allegations
A Missouri woman is accused of child abuse in Lincoln County. Brenda Deutsch, of Winfield, is charged with felony counts of neglect, child abuse and child endangerment. More here: https://t.co/gKHrRxQbz7
— Shoshana Stahl (@shoshana_stahl) April 9, 2025
“A witness who had come forward with some information regarding the systemic abuse that was going on in the home had said that they had been asked to bring the child down to Texas and bring the monkey back in return,” Missouri’s Lincoln County Prosecutor Mike Wood told KSDK.
Wood added, “Obviously we have to do more investigation to see if that’s actually credible or if that’s true.
“Two things that really stood out was the number of children that had been fostered through that home and then the allegations that these types of abuse and emotional neglect had been going on for what seemed to be perhaps a decade,” Wood said.
Deutsch is currently held on a $250,000 cash-only bond, and the investigation is ongoing, according to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office on social media.
Published: Apr 9, 2025 03:25 pm