Reese, Judge.A Gwinnett County jury found Therian Wimbush[1] guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of committing three counts of cruelty to children in the second degree[2] against R. W. and I. W., two of her ten children. She appeals, proceeding pro se, from the judgment of conviction, and raises a number of alleged errors. For the reasons set forth, infra, we affirm. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict,[3] the record reveals the following material facts.R. W. R. W. is the eldest of ten children of Recardo Wimbush and the Appellant, and was sixteen years old at the time of the Appellant’s trial in January 2017. R. W. initially, until sometime in 2012 when he was twelve years old, slept with his nine siblings in nine beds in the same room. When he was 12 years old, he began sleeping on a mat in the exercise room in the basement because “[he] had done something wrong, but [he did not] remember what it was.” Once R. W. started sleeping in the basement, he was not permitted to play with his siblings or go upstairs and interact with them. He testified that, sometime later, his parents wanted to use the exercise room and “they [ ] cleaned out the closet that was next to it so [he] could sleep in there.” Soon after moving into the closet, R. W.’s sleeping mat was replaced by his bed. To relieve boredom while everyone was asleep and without his parents’ permission, R. W. went upstairs one night and took a DVD player, hiding it in the box spring of his bed. R. W. also took food from upstairs. When his parents found the DVD player, R. W. received a spanking.Subsequently, on another occasion, R. W. went upstairs without his parents’ permission, but was caught by his father and sent back to the basement. The next night, R. W. took a sleeping bag and ran away from home, because he thought he would receive a spanking for having gone back upstairs. R. W. testified that, once he left his home, “[he did not] have any plans” and walked for about 30 to 45 minutes. On August 22, 2012, an officer with the Gwinnett County Police Department responded to a call about a person walking down a road in Gwinnett County. Upon arrival, the officer encountered a youth, later identified as 12-year-old R. W., carrying a blue sleeping bag and walking down the road. When the officer asked for his name, R. W. responded, “I don’t know.” The officer testified that R. W. explained that he came from an orphanage, and was “living off of water and food from passerbyers.” The police officer asked R. W. his name again and R. W. responded with three separate names and two dates of birth. The officer then placed R. W. into custody for providing false information. After being placed into the patrol vehicle, R. W. properly identified himself to the police officer and provided his date of birth and his mother’s phone number. The Appellant arrived at the scene and completed a juvenile complaint form, which acknowledged that she was assuming custody of R. W. and was aware of a court date in Juvenile Court. The police officer testified that he did not inquire about R. W.’s home life, and neither the Appellant nor R. W. discussed it.A couple of months later, and without R. W.’s prior knowledge, a lock was placed on the outside of the closet door so that he could not leave the closet. No one spoke to R. W. about why the lock was there or how long it would remain. Although there was a window in the closet, R. W. did not have permission from his parents to open it. There were no lights or bathroom in the closet, and one of R. W.’s parents brought him food once or twice a day. R. W. did not see or play with his siblings, and there were no books, toys, or games in the closet. When his bed sheets became moldy, they were removed without being replaced. R. W. did not exercise in the closet, and spent his time lying on his bed, listening to his “siblings running around and screaming and playing and having fun.” When R. W. scratched some of the paint off of the walls to relieve boredom, the Appellant became “upset.” R. W. remained in the closet for “about two years,” and during that time, he wore “[a] tank top and underwear.” He wore the same clothes the entire time and did not bathe until he went to Juvenile Court. Once R. W. was released from the closet, he stated that his legs felt weak and he experienced pain when he tried to walk, play, or climb up stairs.On June 15, 2014, a Department of Family and Children Services (“DFCS”) representative visited the Appellant’s home in Gwinnett County in response to a report received on the “child abuse hotline that a child was locked in a basement[.]” The next day, a DFCS case manager went to the Appellant’s home. Upon arrival, the Appellant answered the door and told the case manager that she had been “ expecting someone from the Department to follow up.” The Appellant invited the case manager into the home, and the case manager spoke with Recardo Wimbush and the Appellant for about two hours. The case manager testified that, according to the couple’s religious beliefs, “when someone commits a sin, they should be separated and they should have to pay restitution.” The case manager stated that the Appellant told her that “[R. W.] was sent down to the basement to separate [him] from the family as a punishment for his behavior [ ]” and that R. W. had been in the basement “ maybe [about] two years or 18 months.” During that visit, the case manager did not visit with any of the children living there, but learned from the Appellant that R. W. was sleeping in the basement, just sleeping in the basement, that was just his room. And then I think it was August of 2012 he ran away, and the police brought him back. And then he was more restricted to the basement. And [the Appellant] wasn’t exactly sure, but the child said January of 2013 he took a DVD player and a book down to his room. When his mom found it, she put the lock on the room that he was in in the basement.
According to the case manager, after the Appellant placed the lock on the door, R. W. was not permitted to “interact with his siblings[,] he was not allowed to leave the basement[, h]e was just locked in that room.”During a visit to the home on June 18, 2014, the case manager spoke to R. W. in his basement closet. She testified that the closet floor contained dirt and hair and the only furniture in the small room was a box spring and a “very dirty” twin mattress. Further, the mattress had a blanket but no sheets or pillows; the closet’s window was covered with white paint; and there was no bulb in the light fixture. Also, the case manager saw a plastic bottle in a corner of the room that she thought contained urine. There were no lamps, books, exercise equipment, medicine, DVD players, or any “form of entertainment” in the room. The word “pride” was written on one of the room’s walls with “other smaller words written around each letter.” While the case manager spoke to R. W., he was very soft spoken with a “very flat affect.” R. W. admitted to her that he took a DVD player and a book downstairs, and when his parents located the items, “they placed a lock on the door and he was not allowed to leave the basement area.” R. W. also told the case manager that prior to the installation of the lock on his door, he lived in the basement area, but was able to travel upstairs at night after the family was asleep.The case manager saw R. W. with his parents the next day at a court appearance. He looked “groomed,” with his hair cut short, and according to R. W., he had bathed that day. After the court appearance, the case manager accompanied R. W. to the Gwinnett County Police Department for an interview and observed that R. W. paused at the front of the building, held onto the rail, and made an effort to “negotiate how to climb those five steps up into the building.” R. W. complained to the case manager of pain in his legs, and she noticed that “he walked with a limp.” The guardian ad litem appointed for all of the Wimbush children interviewed R. W. during the June 19, 2014 court appearance. R. W. told her that “he hadn’t seen his siblings in a very long time,” since the placement of the lock on the closet door, and “besides leaving to come to Juvenile Court[,] he hadn’t been let out of the room[.]” During the interview, R. W. stated that one of his parents allowed him to leave the room to use the restroom maybe two or three times a day. If he needed to use the restroom outside of those times, R. W. relieved himself in a plastic jar in his room. R. W. could not see out of the closet’s window and spent his time in the basement closet picking at “ paint on the walls” and listening to what his family was doing in the home. She further testified that R. W. told her his parents had accused him of “inappropriately touch[ing] three of his siblings,” but that “[h]e did not appear to have any recollection of ever having done anything like that[.]” R. W. told the guardian ad litem that he stayed in the basement as punishment because “ he did bad things, that he had taken the book and the DVD player and he lied.” R. W. also told the guardian ad litem that he did not go to school and that his mother used to teach him, but she “stopped teaching him once the lock was placed on the bedroom door.” In addition, he told her that he did not recall ever having seen a doctor. A pediatrician testified that she saw R. W. on July 18, 2014, for a medical examination and that the youth reported that “he had pain in his legs, knees, and ankles; that he felt tired pretty frequently [and] occasionally after walking for a while, he had a little bit of a limp.” R. W. had a fungal rash on his abdomen and his back, and x-rays of R. W.’s legs, knees, and wrists showed osteopenia and growth crease lines. According to the pediatrician, osteopenia is defined as “increased bone destruction, decreased bone formation” that takes awhile to develop and is rare in juveniles, and that contributing factors are immobilization for a long period of` time and the inability to do “weight[-]bearing exercises[.]” R. W.’s general screening laboratory results showed that his Vitamin D level was “ significantly low,” and the pediatrician testified that Vitamin D deficiency “can lead to easy fatigue.”An expert in child psychiatry conducted a psychiatric forensic examination of R. W. in July 2015. R. W. told him that he lived in the basement for “about [a] year and a half” and in that room, “[t]here was practically nothing to do[,] . . . he really didn’t have any books or other things to entertain himself with.” The child psychiatrist testified that R. W. was “pretty lonely” and felt “left out [, h]e could hear other members of the family a lot of the time and [R. W.] wanted to be part of it.” R. W. expressed to the child psychiatrist a “longing to be with his family, which [R. W.] found quite painful.” The psychiatrist testified that R. W. appeared to be “unclear” about why he was originally punished. R. W. underwent a psychosexual evaluation, and the results were “normal.” The child psychiatrist testified that R. W. did not receive physical exercise while he was locked in the basement and was “really quite weak[ ]” upon his release, but he did not complain because he “ just thought that would make things worse.”
