Father, Girlfriend Behind Bars for Starving 5-Year-Old, Locking Up Refrigerator, Pantry, and Trash: Police

Despite David Fivas, 32, and Jessica Harmes, 42, repeated insistences that the child was well fed, and even overate if allowed to do so, authorities argue that the evidence did not back up those claims. Both have been charged with felony child torture, according to a press release from the Salt Lake County District Attorney.

The girl’s father triggered the investigation when he brought her into the hospital on August 30, 2025, and told staff there that she was not gaining weight and that she would eat her own feces, Play-Doh and other non-food items.

Upon examining the girl, though, the hospital immediately assessed that her situation was far more dire than even Fivas was presenting. The Center for Safe and Healthy Families at Primary Children’s Medical Center (SHF) noted “severe malnutrition and growth failure,” according to the DA’s release.

She was experiencing multiple “medical distresses” as a result of severe and chronic malnutrition, according to the statement, including bradycardia, a slowing of heart rate and shrinking of heart muscles often seen with prolonged malnutrition and most commonly associated with anorexia, according to the American Heart Association.

SHF explained the unusual eating behaviors by explaining in the DA’s press release that even a five-year-old is old enough to “attempt to ‘save’ themselves from things like starvation by scavenging food or eating non-food items.” The organization said it was a “common late-stage manifestation of starvation” when the body is able “to overcome revulsion and eat non-food in an attempt to sustain themselves.”

This also wasn’t the first time the girl had been admitted, with her also being brought to the hospital in February 2025 for the same issues. At that time, she was noted to be suffering from failure to thrive and malnutrition, but it appears that no positive changes were made in her care at home.

Fivas allegedly said that he’d gained custody of the girl at five months old and that since then she has “steadily decreased on the growth chart,” according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Law&Crime. At the time she was brought in, doctors reported that she weighed about what you might expect for a typical 16-month-old child; she was also still in a diaper.

Despite the family insisting that she was well fed at home, after just over two weeks in the hospital, per the affidavit, during which she received “consistent, scheduled meals,” the girl gained nine pounds. Neither parent could explain this weight gain, they told authorities.

When asked about her eating habits, Fivas said that she would eat until she vomited and at non-food items like Play-Doh and wax, per the report. He further said that his daughter would “eat food out of the trash, get up at night to find food, and suffers from chronic constipation.” He said that he “thought she was a thief” who would “steal” food, which is why he and Harmes ultimately put child locks on the refrigerator, pantry, and trash.

In addition to evidence of starvation, SHF noted that the girl had not been enrolled in school, which “raised concerns for isolation, another form of psychological treatment.” There were two other children in the house — Harmes’ 13-year-old son and the couple’s newborn daughter — but no evidence of mistreatment.

Detectives discovered that the five-year-old shared a room with both the teen and the newborn in the family’s one-bedroom apartment, but while the older child slept on a hammock chair and the baby in a bassinet, the girl was forced to sleep on the ground with only a blanket. Fivas told investigators that there was another air mattress in storage but it was “too hard to get to” and there was “no room for it” in the apartment, per CBS affiliate KUTV.

In interviewing the teen, he told investigators, according to CrimeOnline, that the 5-year-old “was known to access the refrigerator, freezer, and pantry, which led his family to install child locks to prevent [her] from accessing the food.” He indicated it was his mother’s idea to lock up the food.

Harmes told them, per the press release, that when she and her son moved in, the girl would “eat large quantities of food,” making them “hesitant” to give her more. She said that the girl would “bulk up” and then become “really, really thin,” as she was when Fivas took her to the hospital. She said that the child did not grow beyond a 2T size during the first year that she lived with Fivas and did not gain weight, nor did she speak.

When investigators spoke with Fivas, he admitted that he “resented” the five-year-old because she “rubbed him the wrong way” and he got an “odd vibe or odd feeling from her” that was “not in any way, shape or form kosher for [him],” per the affidavit.

Hermes said that when they found out she was pregnant, they tried to call the Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) to give them the girl, but the organization “wouldn’t take her.” According to the press release, Harmes said that Fivas wanted to give up his daughter because “he didn’t want her and didn’t want to take care of her.”

At Fivas’ bond hearing on Thursday, prosecutors asked that he be kept behind bars without bond, calling the situation extremely concerning. “This is a matter of being deprived food and being prevented from stealing food,” the prosecutor said, per Law&Crime. “Apparently, she was so hungry, she’s still in diapers and eating her own feces.”

“This is a little beyond just not taking care of a child or neglecting a child,” the prosecutor added. “This is intentionally harming this particular child.”

Fivas and Harmes have been booked into the Salt Lake County Jail and are being held without bond. The children are now in the custody of the state.