Carson City mom faces child abuse, false imprisonment charges

A Carson City mother is in jail and faces felony child abuse and false imprisonment charges after she allegedly locked her child in a room and told authorities to come pick him up because she couldn't take care of the boy anymore.

Michele Rene Papez, a 30-year-old cosmetologist, was arrested in the 1100 block of Lindsay Lane. She is being held on $60,000 bail. The boy was taken into protective care. During the investigation, officers discovered the boy locked inside an empty room for about seven hours. They noted the home was filthy inside and that outside the home there had been some kind of religious ceremony that involved a swastika and burning ritual. Papez also admitted to using methamphetamine.

Officers were dispatched to the home Tuesday where officers said she appeared to be intoxicated or on some kind of narcotic. The woman told authorities to take her son because she couldn't take care of him, according to the arrest report. She told officers: "The state needs to keep him. I can't take care of him."

The woman told officers she and her husband had locked the child in the bedroom for "a few hours" because he refused to do his chores and they believed he was going to leave, the arrest report stated. Officers requested to speak with the boy and Papez escorted him through the house to the room the boy was in, the report stated.

The officer then observed sheet rock dust on the floor at the base of the bedroom door and observed a tie-down hooked on the bedroom door know strung across the hall and hooked into the bathroom door. There was a thick metal coat hanger that hung through the bedroom door and routed through the wall and ended where it twisted together. The bedroom door was secured closed from the outside, the arrest report stated.

The woman's husband opened the door by unhooking the crudely custstructed tie-down then began to untwist the wire. The woman stood by the officer and stated that her son was "out of control."

As the husband began to untwist the wire, he told the officer "stay back" and then yelled through the door: "don't you cuss at me!" The husband then pushed the door open and took a step back in a cautious manner as if whatever was inside the room was going to attack him, the arrest report stated.

The officer noticed that there was nothing inside the room except a metal frame of a bed against a wall and a small table in which the boy was sitting on, his knees to his chest with his arms.

The arrested officer asked the boy if he was hurt and why he was locked in the room. The boy stated he was OK and was locked in the room because he didn't do the dishes and talked back to his mother. He told the officer that his mother and her husband locked him in the room at about noon that day as punishment. The boy had been in the room for about seven hours, according to the arrest report.

The boy told the officer that the husband screwed wood over the window so he wouldn't climb out of the house, and referred to her mother's husband as "a psycho." More officers were called to the home and photos were taken Officers observed garbage and clothing all over the floor within every room in the house, and noticed the refrigerator had little food and was extremely dirty inside.

Outside the home, officers found about 50 bags of garbage and a large burn area on the lawn in the form of a circle where a large orange swastika had been painted. The husband informed officers the burning swastika circle was he was "having a religious ceremony and the burn got out of hand" according to the arrest report.

Child Protected Services were called to the home where Papez was interviewed and agreed to a drug test in which she tested positive for methamphetamine, cocaine, opaites and THC, according to the arrest report.

Papez was told of the drugs in her system after the test was administered in which the woman replied: "I never smoke weed!" according to the arrest report. Instead, she admitted to using methamphetamine recently, according to the arrest report.

Papez was arrested and faces the felony abuse child abuse charge and felony false imprisonment. The husband of Papez was not arrested, according to the report, because of a severe medical condition.

In other arrests:

Two people were arrested Wednesday and face drug and other charges after officers conducted a traffic stop and found methamphetamine.

Bryan James Heath, 34, and Sonja Marie Cortinas, 33, were arrested near the intersection of Neptune and Carmine.

Heath was driving a black Nissan Xterra and did not have a license or insurance and had two failure to appear warrants for traffic violations, according to the arrest report. During a pat down search of Heath, officers found a bag of methamphetamine inside the man's coin pant coin pocket. He faces a felony charge of the drug possession and three misdemeanor traffic charges. Bail was set at $3,931.

The vehicle passenger, Cortinas, then provided officers a false name and social security number. She was pressed as dispatch came up with a possible description of the woman, including tattoos, according to the arrest report.

Cortinas then admitted to her real name and said she lied because she had a warrant, the report stated. It turns out she had several warrants, including a failure to appear traffic warrant out of Carson City Justice Court, a probation violation warrant also from the same court, and a $3,000 cash-only failure to appear warrant in Douglas County drug court.

Cortinas faces a felony failure to appear charge for the Douglas County warrant, and three misdemeanor charges including interfering/obstructing an officer. Bail was set at $4,969.