Nevada family arrested after child, 7, found outside with arms, legs bound

Four members of a Nye County family are facing child abuse charges after a 7-year-old boy was found outside with his arms and legs bound and 3 masks over his face, according to probable cause documents. Family members told police the abuse was punishment for the boy wetting the bed.

A passerby stopped by a Pahrump home to ask why their horses did not have shade. When the person walked up to the door, they noticed a 7-year-old boy on the front porch with his hands tied behind his back, his legs tied together and three masks over his face. The passerby called police.

When police arrived, they saw the boy tied up with his hands in mittens. Police say he was crying, his skin flushed and dry. Police say it was 104 degrees outside when they arrived.

Police untied the boy and observed there were red ligature marks where the boy was tied while the rest of his body was white.

Pahrump Valley Fire and Rescue was called to the scene and took the boy to the hospital. The Division of Child and Family Services also responded to the scene.

Police talked to Jodi Tracy who was home at the time. She told police the boy "peed the bed on purpose" and "she had bound his arms and legs and placed him outside as a lesson," a probable cause statement says. She said the boy was outside for 10-15 minutes. Jodi Tracy was placed under arrest and as police were putting her in the back of a patrol vehicle, Jodi's two daughters, Mellysa Byington and Courtney Flores-Tracy, approached wanting to know why their mother was being arrested.

When police told the daughters, they said they "did not think it was child abuse and they knew that [the boy] was tied up on the front porch because they claimed he was dangerous," the probable cause statement says.

Courtney told police she knew that the boy was tied up on the porch but she didn't say anything. She said she would not do this to their own children and said she did not feel that it was okay to leave the boy outside in the sun.

Police interviewed another family member, Sean Tracy, who is mildly autistic. Sean said that Jodi ties up the boy "almost every day" and that the abuse had been going on for about a year. Sean told police he told Jodi it was "not right."

Police interviewed Jodi's husband Michael Tracy who said he knew of the abuse and participated in it.

After being read her Miranda rights, Jodi agreed to talk to the police, and said they had been having a lot of issues with the boy for the last year.

Jodi told police she had "run out of options after [the boy] has been breaking stuff and harassing the other kids so she has resorted to using mittens to tie [the boy] up and contain him," a probable cause statement says. "Jodi also has to tie [the boy] up at night with mittens and place [the boy] in a dog crate in order to prevent him from harassing the other kids."

Jodi Tracy faces a count of child abuse after admitting "to willfully causing [the boy] a child under 14 years of age to suffer unjustifiable mental and physical suffering as a result of Jody's abuse and neglect."

Jodi's two daughters and husband all face a count of child abuse and an additional count for letting the abuse happen and not reporting it. Sean Tracy was not charged.