MEET THE PARENTS FROM HELL! LOCKED THEIR DAUGHTER IN A CLOSET FOR A YEAR WHEN THEY CAUGHT HER GETTING FOOD FROM THE FRIDGE!

A Texas couple has been arrested for imprisoning their daughter in an unlit closet for a year - all because she was caught filching food from the refrigerator, say cops.

Leticia, and Alfredo Ines, 40 and 43, were charged Saturday in Brownsville with second-degree injury to a child and unlawful restraint.

The girl was so malnourished, she appeared to be only 8 years old when she was found by authorities, investigators said.

During the day, the 12-year-old was only let out of the closet to go to school, eat, or use the bathroom, cops say.

At night, she did her homework by the slight rays of light coming from underneath the closet door, but there were no evening bathroom breaks – she had to use a bucket that she was forced to clean out every morning before school, a spokesman for the Brownsville Police Department, Sergeant Jimmy Manrrique, told the Brownsville Herald.

Amazingly, she had been attending school daily and maintaining steady grades throughout the ordeal, the Brownsville Herald reports.

According to a report posted on CBS's Crimesider blog, her mother told cops she initially locked the girl up to keep her from taking food from the fridge.

The family turned up on authorities' radar when another of the couple's children reported the abuse to school officials. Three boys - ages 17, 13, and 11 - also lived at the home.

"Everyone in the house knew what was going on, but you have children, who based on fear, hold this secret," Manrrique told the paper.

Following the Ines' arrest, the girl has since been placed in foster care and the three boys have moved in with other family members.