A West Virginia knife threat case has put Sara Daniels, a 36-year-old mother of three, at the center of child abuse charges after police say her children described repeated violence and threats inside their home. Authorities say the children told investigators that Daniels chased one of them with a knife and threatened to cut their throats.
Daniels is charged with three counts of child abuse resulting in injury and strangulation, according to jail records. Her three children, ages 14, 11 and 9, separately told authorities that their mother physically hurt them and threatened their lives, sometimes during what they described as drug-fueled rage. One child told interviewers that Daniels shouted, โIโll cut your brother and sisterโs throat if you leave,โ court documents say.
The allegations extend beyond the knife episode. The children also said Daniels and her boyfriend were using drugs when their vehicles rammed into each other, nearly striking the 9-year-old. Investigators heard the accounts during interviews in May at the Child Advocacy Center in Elkins, where officials often document abuse claims involving children in a setting designed to reduce stress on young witnesses.
Court records also say Daniels told her teenage daughter that she wished the girl would have died. The documents further allege that Daniels said she would help her daughter kill herself. In another account, an interviewer noted a scar on the 11-year-old child, who said Daniels caused it by banging the childโs head against a door. Those claims became part of the child abuse case now moving through the West Virginia system.
