Couple accused of having left a 5 year old boy as punishment for getting wet

ST. PETER, Minn. – A man and a woman from southern Minnesota are accused of filing a five-year-old boy into the woods to punish himself for getting wet.

Lynda Michel, 42, and Gregory Wilson, 32, were charged on Friday in the Nicollet County District Court for negligence. The authorities say that the boy is Wilson's biological son and that Michel lives with him and the child.

The boy was found on August 28 on a road south of St. Pierre, a community about 90 kilometers southwest of Minneapolis, according to authorities. He cried and rained when a motorist saw him. He told the police that he had been deposed by his "mother and father" because he had been "naughty".

A man who was in the vehicle with the couple and the boy told the police that the man had tried to convince the couple to leave the boy, say the authorities.

The couple told the authorities that they had turned around, but he could not find him. The police found the couple in search of the child, but the couple did not call to report it.

According to the investigators, officers found "multiple black and blue and red blues" on the boy's back, buttocks, and hips, indicating that they had been caused over time, and Wilson told investigators that he gave the boy a steady hand. Wilson also faces charges of gross mischief, malicious punishment of a child and domestic assault.

The child has been placed in pre-trial detention and is currently in foster care, according to court documents that do not mention any lawyer for Michel or Wilson.