A starving child’s knock on a neighbor’s door exposed eight siblings trapped in a frozen RV, but the mother’s plea deal dismissed nearly every felony

The eldest of eight children went to a neighbor’s door looking for food. She later told a deputy they had spent weeks going hungry in the family’s RV, while the adults had enough to eat.

That welfare check in Bradley, Wisconsin, led to 12 charges against Megan Cis, 33, including child abuse and neglect. According to WSAW, she has now received two years of probation after pleading guilty to amended charges of misdemeanor victim intimidation, battery, and THC possession.

The court dismissed nine other charges but considered them at sentencing. Deputies began investigating on Dec. 12, after the property owner called to report the child’s request for food.

She said the children went hungry while the adults had enough to eat

Cis and her partner, Wilber Edward Copeland III, had taken the youngest child to a holiday parade, leaving seven children at the RV, according to the criminal complaint. They stopped back afterward but soon left again. The eldest said their next trip was to buy vapes and marijuana.

The child told a responding deputy that they had gone without food or had very little to eat for about four weeks. They had also run out of bottled water before, she said.

Keeping warm was another problem. The eldest said the children slept in the cold, but the adults would not let them put on extra layers, boots, or jackets because they did not want them “wasting clothes.” She said the adults had both a space heater and enough food.

Temperatures were forecast to drop to 20 degrees below zero that night. The property owner told the deputy that the RV had propane heat, but she worried the children would lose that heat if the power went out.

Investigators later learned from Cis’ jail calls that one child had needed hospital treatment for malnutrition. The children also told investigators they could get to the adults’ drugs and paraphernalia.

A similar situation unfolded in Florida, where a mother was accused of leaving four children home alone while she took a cruise. There, an infant’s father alerted police after hearing the children inside the apartment. In Bradley, it was the eldest child who went looking for food and ended up at the property owner’s door.

She said she had already tried telling a counselor

The eldest told investigators that Cis hit and kicked her because she did not believe the children had kept the dogs outside long enough. She also described an earlier beating that she reported to a school counselor while the family lived in New York.

Speaking up led to more punishment, the child said. She told investigators the adults did not want anyone to know what happened at home and instructed the children to lie to police and child protective services.

The child said that, in New York, the adults had installed a camera outside the home to monitor their conversations with visiting officers. Several children also described being hit with belts and spanked, saying each adult punished their own biological children.

Children in a separate Michigan neglect case told investigators they had orders not to answer the door or leave home. Their mother, Kelli Bryant, later received a prison sentence after pleading no contest to child abuse charges.

Cis was the only adult to face a child abuse charge in the Wisconsin case. Copeland, 42, pleaded not guilty to his charges in March. WSAW’s Oct. 2 report listed his next court activity for Oct. 5.

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