“Fantastic Adventures” channel garnered a YouTube following of more than 800,000 people with its family-oriented videos. The videos primarily depict children fighting super villains and several other sorts of heroic characters in a fantasy universe. However, in real life, all of these innocent children were allegedly victims of horrific abusive crimes by their adoptive mother. Their adoptive mother allegedly used to punish these kids in a miscellany of ways, such as locking them in closets for days, starving them to a point they started crying and even using pepper spray on them, Gizmodo reported.
Abusive crimes alleged on children
Presently, the “Fantastic Adventure" channel has around 800,000 subscribers along with millions of viewers. In total, the channel has acquired around 250 million views. Each video that is uploaded to the channel describes a scenario where these children are fighting with supervillains and other characters in a fantasy world for mostly about ten to fifteen minutes.
According to the court papers, the adoptive mother of these kids, Machelle Hackney, and her two biological adult sons were arrested by the police at their home in Arizona on March 15. Machelle is also responsible for controlling the family-oriented YouTube channel. The police authorities have charged the mother, Machelle with several counts of crimes related to child abuse, as per the police reports.
Her two biological sons whose names are Ryan and Logan are also being charged by the authorities as both of them failed to report the crime when it was happening.
According to Gizmodo Media, legal authorities began to investigate the matter after they were contacted by the biological daughter of Machelle, Megan, on March 13.
Megan informed the authorities that Machelle had abused her adoptive siblings by using pepper spray and locking them in closets without food or water for several days. In response to Megan's allegations against her mother, law enforcement decided to carry out a thorough welfare check of Machelle's Arizona residence. During the welfare check, the police shockingly noticed that a child was found in a closet, the BBC reported.
The police also noticed that the children looked extremely malnourished and sick. The children said to the police that they were hungry and thirsty.
YouTube's take on 'Fantastic Adventures' allegations
While the officers were talking to the children, one of the kids drank three entire 16-ounce bottles of water in barely twenty minutes. The police also gave another kid some chips after she told them that she was hungry. However, the kid was reportedly terrified of taking the chips because she didn't want her mother to know about this. After legal authorities spoke with the children, they somehow managed to get hold of a search warrant and found two full cans of pepper spray in Machelle's bedroom.
A series of interviews were conducted by the police with the children. During the interview, one of the children said that Machelle would pepper spray her along with her siblings. They were then forced to take ice baths by the mother. If they refused to take the bath, their heads were pushed under the water.
Around three children talked about being locked in the closet for several days. The room in which the closet was located was also used as a green screen room. They used to do the filming and special effects in that same room. All of the children reportedly told the police that they were allegedly forced to be a part of the channel. The children also said they would be badly punished by their mother if they forgot their lines or messed up in between.
After being interrogated by the police for several hours. One of Machelle's biological adult sons, Logan, apparently admitted to the mother's wrongdoings. He told the police he was aware of the children being locked in closets, taking cold ice baths and pepper spraying.
The adoptive mother Machelle has denied the allegations made against her. She told the police that she would only spank her children and make them stand in a corner as a punishment. YouTube has confirmed that the channel “Fantastic Adventures” was demonetized as soon as they got to know about the recent arrests. The Google-owned company also issued an official statement saying that the channel would be terminated if Machelle enters a guilty plea or is convicted on the charges.
