Affidavit alleges severe abuse of missing boy

COLORADO SPRING

One of two boys who had been missing for years before authorities were notified was denied food, spanked, forced to run up and down stairs and rolled up tightly in blankets "like a burrito" as punishment in the home of their adoptive parents, an adoptive brother claimed in a statement to investigators.

Austin Eugene Bryant often grew so hungry that he scavenged food from a garbage can, an arrest warrant affidavit quotes the adoptive brother as saying.

Austin and his biological brother, Edward Dylan Bryant, disappeared from their adoptive parents' home in Monument, Colo., by late 2003, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said Thursday. Austin would have been 7 and Edward 11 at the time.

The couple who adopted them, Edward Bryant, 58, and Linda Bryant, 54, have been arrested on charges of receiving nearly $175,000 in government payments to support the boys, even though they weren't living with the couple for most of the decade.

Maketa said the Bryants were entitled to government payments to care for Austin and Edward because both were considered special needs children. He didn't elaborate.

The parents haven't been charged in the boys' disappearances.

They were arrested in Texas, where they had moved around 2005. It was unclear whether they have attorneys. A lawyer who represented them in a 2007 bankruptcy case didn't return a phone message Thursday.

Linda Bryant told investigators she did not kill the boys, the arrest warrant affidavit said. She denied most of the abuse allegations but acknowledged forcing the boys to exercise and withholding food, which she described as "delaying food," the affidavit said.

The affidavit makes no mention of any comment from the elder Edward Bryant about the abuse allegations. It says he denied signing any documents to get payments for the two boys and denied any knowledge of getting government money to help with their care.

Deputies are concentrating now on trying to find the boys, Maketa said. He said deputies have conducted a preliminary search at the Bryants' former home in Monument, just north of Colorado Springs, and further searches are planned there. Whether the search spreads to other areas depends on what investigators find, he said.

Asked if he thought the brothers were still alive, Maketa said, "You know, that's a very difficult question. What I can say is each day that passes, the faith of finding them alive diminishes."

At a news conference Thursday, Maketa displayed sketchy timelines of the two boys' lives. Edward was born in May 1992, Austin in January 1996. Both were adopted by the Bryants in March 2000.

Austin shows up in Monument-area school records from 2001 through late 2003, the sheriff said, but the paper trail ends in October 2003.

"There was some activity" in the younger Edward's Medicaid account in December 2003, the sheriff said, but after that, his trail also goes cold.

"Somebody out there knows something about them," Maketa said. "And what they may know may be old, but it's very important that we get access to those people and that information so that we know what direction this investigation is going to go."

The parents gave conflicting accounts of when they last saw the boys, Maketa said. Edward Bryant said the younger Edward ran away in 2001 and Austin in 2003, investigators said, while Linda Bryant said they both ran away in 2003.

Maketa said the family still lived in Colorado at the time but the parents didn't file a missing-person report.