She Ate A Popsicle, So She Was Locked In Her Sister’s Barbie Box As Punishment Until She Suffocated: Inside The Appalling Life And Death Of Ame Deal
Phoenix, Arizona. Ame Deal had almost turned 11-years-old. Just 12 days before her birthday, her young life was extinguished by her own abusive family members.
She lived in Phoenix, Arizona with her family, but her life was nothing but sad from the start. She never got to really be a kid. She never got to enjoy her life.
It’s completely unfathomable to me how anyone could be so cruel to a child, and yet they were; the very people who should have loved and protected her the most.
Ame’s life came to an end after she ate a popsicle, and she was locked inside of her sister’s Barbie box as punishment, where she suffocated.
Please prepare yourself before reading further, as the details of what happened to Ame in life and death are harrowing, traumatic, and heartrending.
Facebook; pictured above is Ame as a two-year-old, sitting on a couch
Ame came into the world on July 24th, 2000. Ame’s mom Shirley Deal was married to a man named David Deal, but there was a big question as to whether or not he really was Ame’s biological father.
Shirley admits she had been cheating on her husband, but even so, she decided to put David’s name down on Ame’s birth certificate.
He denied he was her dad. So did all of his family members.
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Shirley and David seemed to have a rocky relationship, and Shirley claimed that David was extremely abusive to her. They moved around a lot and they ended up living with his family at one point, but then Shirley was kicked out of that home, being forced to leave her children behind.
Ame’s aunt, Cynthia Stoltzmann, ended up getting full custody over her and was appointed as her legal guardian.
Prior to Ame and her extended family landing in their garbage-filled, overcrowded home in Phoenix, Child Protective Services had been made aware of several different issues.
The deplorable living conditions the children lived in was one thing reported to CPS, while Ame was the center of several other issues.
The school she attended in Ogden, Utah, had reported that Ame had lice, was constantly dirty, and even had cat pee in her shoes when she showed up one day.
It wasn’t long after CPS was made aware of the family that they up and left town, moving to Phoenix and deciding to home school all the children.
The home in Phoenix was hardly a home; run down and packed full of people. Some lived in tents outside in the yard.
At least a dozen other children lived there with Ame, along with her Aunt Cynthia, her cousin Sammantha Allen and her husband John Allen, her grandmother Judith Deal, and her father David Deal.
And every single person under that roof was aware of the abuse that Ame suffered.
Facebook; Ame plays with a toy in the photo above, at age 3
If Ame’s family members weren’t abusing her, they were standing by and letting it all happen to her.
Infuriatingly enough, after her death made international headlines, neighbors started to come forward to say they knew it was going on. They simply did nothing about it.
They lived their lives just feet away, completely ok with a little girl being treated like trash.
Ame was starved. She was in a constant state of hunger. She was 48 inches and weighed under 60 pounds at the time of her death.
She was beaten by her family. Sometimes with a board. She was chained up like an animal.
Her family made her walk on scorching, hot pavement. Barefoot. They made her sleep inside of a bathtub, with no pillows or blankets. Nothing.
They forced her to pick up dog poop. They made her eat it. They smeared it on her face.
Ame was the only child in the Deal household who got treated in such an appalling way. All because they didn’t think she was part of her family…because David Deal was disputably her biological father.
On July 12th, 2011, Ame was forced into a box. It used to house her sister’s Barbie collection until she received so many they just couldn’t fit inside anymore.
But Ame fit. The box was 13 inches deep, 15 and a half inches wide, and 31 inches long.
It was hardly the first time Ame was made to get inside the Barbie box, but it would end up being the last time.
This time, Ame was padlocked into the box by her cousin’s husband, John Allen. Before she was put inside though, John forced her to bend over backward for three grueling hours. When Ame fell down, he bullied her to get back into the unnatural position. She cried.
Ame was then forced to do an endless amount of jumping jacks. They made her run in the sweltering, 103-degree heat that day.
Then by 1 a.m., John put her inside the box, put the box in the garage that had no air conditioning, and went to sleep.
As for why this happened, someone in the home had given Ame and the other children popsicles, but some of the adults in the home took issue with Ame being given a special treat. She wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t supposed to be treated as well as the other children.
The morning following Ame being locked in the box, she was found dead. She had suffocated to death. She had struggled to take every breath before she passed out.
One of the adults ended up calling 911, and when a police officer arrived on the scene, they all claimed it was a game gone wrong. Ame and the children had been playing hide and seek.
She just locked herself inside.
Facebook; Ame smiles in the photo above
The officer didn’t buy what the family was telling him. Ame was filthy lying there in the black, beaten-up box.
She had very bad bruising on both her knees, from being slammed up into the sides of the trunk for hours. Her head was squished down into her chest. The story didn’t add up.
The Deal adults were interrogated by authorities, and John and Sammantha cracked. They admitted to what happened. To what they did to Ame. On July 27th, 2011, the couple was arrested for Ame’s murder.
But they weren’t the only ones charged in this poor child’s death.
Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office; pictured above are Cynthia, Judith, David, and Sammantha in their mugshots
Cynthia Stoltzmann and Judith Deal were arrested for child abuse and kidnapping after admitting they had also put Ame in the trunk on other occasions.
David Deal wasn’t charged with the murder of Ame, but he did plead guilty to attempted child abuse. He was sentenced to 10 years on June 6th, 2013.
After David, Cynthia Stoltzmann (Ame’s aunt) was sentenced to 24 years for child abuse. Next came Judith Deal (Ame’s grandmother). She received 10 years for child abuse.
Then came Sammantha Allen (Ame’s cousin and Cynthia’s daughter). She was sentenced to death on June 26th, 2017. Her husband John was sentenced to death just a few months later.
Sammantha and John both appealed their death sentences, saying they’re too harsh. A court has ruled just this week that John will continue to be on death row, while they still have yet to rule on Sammantha’s case.
Eventually, Ame’s mom Shirley learned about Ame’s death on Facebook. “I trusted them, with all my heart, and now it’s broken. It ain’t never coming back,” Shirley said to AZ Family.
Shirley also explained that David had promised that she would be able to see Ame after his family kicked her out of their home, but he never was true to his word, and she never saw Ame again.
“She wanted a popsicle, she got a popsicle and they put her in a foot-locker, in 103-degree temperature.”
And then she died.
All because she ate a popsicle.
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