A bizarre incident reportedly happened a few years back where a man was confronted on a live TV interview over his missing son. Now the footage has been doing rounds on social media again and people are once again questioning this absurd story where the man had no idea that his missing son has been hiding out from him in their house's basement for 11 days.
Old footage has gone viral on TikTok these days which shows the shocking moment a dad learned that his missing son was in his basement while being on a TV interview.
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It is reported that the 12-year-old had been missing from home for 11 days, and his dad was left in utter shock after the TV presenter informed him that his son was in the basement.
In an interview with Nancy Grace for HLN, father Charles Bothuell IV was lost for words when asked how his son Charles Bothuell V could be alive in the confines of their own home.
The presenter then directly asks the man if he even checked the basement.
He said: "I've searched the basement, my wife has searched the basement, the FBI has searched the basement, the Detroit Police searched my basement.
"We've all searched my basement multiple times."
After the interview, Charles Bothuell IV was bombarded by the press as he returned home, saying that reports he knew his son was in the basement all along as 'absurd'.
Later a police investigation revealed that the 12-year-old was never lost, in fact, he was hiding from his father and stepmother, Monique Dillard-Bothuell.
When Charles Bothuell V was found, he admitted that he hid in the basement because he was scared of the reaction his father was going to have when he realised he hadn't exercised.
In April 2015, the couple was arrested and charged with torture and second-degree child abuse.
Later in court, the torture charge was dismissed, but if proven, the couple could have been serving a lifetime in prison.
At the trial in 2016, Bothuell IV pleaded guilty to fourth-degree child abuse in exchange for the removal of the second-degree child-abuse charges.
It was revealed during court dealings by prosecutors that Bothuell V was very thin and had marks on his body when he was found.
Bothuell IV admitted to beating his son with a PVC pipe and was handed 18 months of probation and mandatory anger management classes.
He later lost custody of his own and was no longer allowed to be in contact with him. His wife, Dillard-Bothuell reportedly accepted a plea deal too, but the details of this were not made public.
This footage after many years has once again gone viral on social media and people are questioning the absurdity of this case.
One commenter said: "Wait this is real ? There's no way."
A second added: "If he had no idea why didn't he run off and go home."
And a third said: "He definitely knew he was in there."
