The 7-year-old niece escaped a Boulevard mobile home in 2025, leading to an investigation and guilty pleas on 15 felony counts.
BOULEVARD, Calif. — A California man and his girlfriend were each sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to 15 felony counts in the abuse of the man’s 7-year-old niece, whose July 2025 escape from their mobile home led deputies to investigate, prosecutors said.
Devin Hughes, 39, and Kayla Reynolds, 32, were sentenced Sept. 11 after entering guilty pleas in March, according to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. The felony counts included torture, child abuse, corporal injury, mayhem and assault likely to cause great bodily injury. Prosecutors said the case involved repeated abuse while the girl was living in the couple’s home in Boulevard, a rural community in southeastern San Diego County.
The child was in the care of Hughes, her biological uncle, and Reynolds when the abuse occurred, prosecutors said. In July 2025, the girl escaped the mobile home and reached a neighbor’s residence. She asked whether she could stay there because she was being abused, according to the District Attorney’s Office. The neighbor contacted authorities, bringing sheriff’s deputies to the area and beginning the investigation that ultimately led to the couple’s prosecution.
Deputies found the girl malnourished and suffering from visible injuries, prosecutors said. During interviews with investigators, she described being deprived of food, burned, physically restrained and subjected to other degrading treatment. Authorities said she was sometimes chained to a treadmill with a cable lock and forced to drink dirty toilet water. Prosecutors also said the abuse included forced drug use. Some additional details released by authorities were more disturbing, but they are not necessary to describe the conduct that led to the criminal case.
The girl also told investigators that her hands had been bound behind her back with a zip tie before Hughes caused her to fall, leaving her with a black eye, according to prosecutors. She said Hughes and Reynolds used vape pens to burn her and required her to sleep on the floor. The District Attorney’s Office said her account described an ongoing pattern of punishment and neglect rather than a single incident.
Investigators searched the residence after the girl’s escape. Prosecutors said deputies found poor living conditions along with zip ties, cable locks and vape pens that supported parts of the child’s account. Three other children were also living in the home at the time, according to the District Attorney’s Office. The sentencing announcement did not provide further information about those children’s current circumstances.
The girl was taken to Rady Children’s Hospital for treatment after she was removed from the home. Prosecutors said she gained 5 pounds during her hospitalization, an indication of the malnutrition deputies said they observed when they first encountered her. She was later placed with another family member. Authorities have not publicly identified the child, whose name is being withheld because she is a minor and the victim of abuse.
San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan called the treatment of the child “abhorrent and heartbreaking.” Stephan credited sheriff’s deputies and detectives, prosecutors and medical workers at Rady Children’s Hospital with helping restore the girl’s safety and health. Deputy District Attorney Seralyn Fields prosecuted the case, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
The guilty pleas resolved the felony case without a trial. Because Hughes and Reynolds admitted guilt to the charges in March, the Sept. 11 proceeding focused on punishment rather than determining whether they committed the offenses. Both received 25-year prison sentences. The District Attorney’s Office did not identify another pending criminal proceeding involving the two defendants in its sentencing announcement.
Prosecutors said the girl remains in the care of another family member and is doing well in her new environment. Authorities have released no additional information about her identity, and the sentencing announcement marked the latest confirmed development in the case more than a year after her escape brought the abuse to the attention of law enforcement.
Author note: Last updated September 19, 2026.