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A 15-year-old Utah boy shot to TikTok fame after he barricaded himself and his sister inside a bedroom at their mom”s home to defy a court order seeking to reunite them with their allegedly sexually abusive father.
Ty Larson and his sister Brynlee have spent months locked in their bedroom at their mother’s $830,000 Salt Lake City home to avoid moving back in with their father, Brent Joel Larson. In 2018 Larson was found to have sexually and emotionally abused them as young children by Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services.
But Larson accused Ty and Brynlee’s mother, Jessica Zhart, of fabricating the allegations and coaching them into making them in a process known as ‘parental alienation,’ according to ProPublica.
Though American Psychiatric Association and many legal entities do not recognize parental alienation as legitimate, in January Judge Derek P. Pullan ruled that Zhart was indeed using it against her kids’ father and ordered they be reunited with him.
Ty has insisted the allegations are true and that he fears for his life from his father. In response, he barricaded himself and Brynlee in their room, and in addition to posting TikToks about the situation has been running a livestream on Twitch 24-hours-a-day so viewers can ‘stand guard’ over them.
Ty Larson, left, livestreams on TikTok from a barricaded bedroom. Police have attempted to return him and his sister, Brynlee Larson, to the custody of their father, who they say sexually abused them
On January 10, Ty posted his first TikTok in which he shared the allegations of his father’s abuse against him and his sister, and explained that two days prior the pair chose to barricade themselves in their room for their own safety.
‘I’m having to be barricaded in my room, my own choice, for me to stay safe because the court system isn’t trying to save us, nobody’s trying to keep us safe,’ he said in the video. ‘I am the one that’s going to have to choose my own safety. And this is only to stall the police, nothing’s gonna stop them, this is just a stall.’
‘We are horrified to go to school, we are horrified to leave the house, we are horrified to even leave this room,’ he added. ‘I am scared if I get sent I will be killed by my father because of how may threats he has made to me and my family if I told anybody.’
Since then, the two have remained in the room with a board of wood nailed across the door while their mother supplies them with food. Initially they would sneak out to use the bathroom, but they have since cut in the wall of the bedroom closet so they can access the bathroom without stepping into a communal area of the home.
In his order to remove the Ty and Brynlee from the home, Judge Pullman accused Zhart of perpetuating the situation by continuing to ‘wash the children’s clothes and to bring food to the barricaded room.’
‘The children do labor under the misperception that they are in the driver’s seat and are free to determine when, where, and on what terms parent-time will occur,’ he wrote. ‘They are not.’
Brynlee Larson, to the custody of their father, who they say sexually abused themBrynlee makes ramen in the sink of the bathroom. Her brother barricaded the bathroom door and cut a hole in the wall (seen just behind Brynlee) to connect it to their bedroom
Ty and Brynlee Larson on a GoFundMe page shared by their mom Jessica Zhart. The pair both allege their father sexually abused them as young kids
Zhart and Larson separated in 2012, but initially maintained an amicable relationship over their children.
But when he was 11-years-old in 2018, Zhart took Ty to a pediatrician to address panic attacks and severe anxiety, according to records reviewed by ProPublica.
There Ty said that his father had been sexually abusing him since he was four-years-old, alleging his father had held his head under water in a bathtub and sprayed water into his anus. Ty said his father did similar things throughout his childhood, and even sometimes came into his room and fondled him while he thought Ty was asleep.
Ty also told investigators his father said ‘he would kill his mother and sister’ if he told anybody about the abuse.
Brynlee, then seven, said her father had also sexually abused her by penetrating her with his finger and fondling her, ProPublica said records showed.
That year, Utah Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) found the allegations to be ‘supported,’ as did police, though Larson was never arrested.
Two other minors also accused Larson of molesting them, according to ProPublica, though DCFS deemed the claims ‘unsupported.’
Ty with this mother, Jessica Zhart. She has denied any allegations of ‘parental alienation’
Jessica Zhart said she had to look up the term ‘parental alienation’ after her husband accused her of it in 2018
Months after the allegations against Larson surfaced, he accused Zhart of sabotaging his relationship with his kids through parental alienation.
She told ProPublica the term was entirely new to her at the time and that she had to look it up to see what it meant.
‘I literally had to wrap my brain around what I was even being accused of,’ she said. ‘I’ve watched them create this story about me, and it doesn’t matter what the truth really is.’
Larson’s attorney called the claims ‘false,’ and insisted they have constantly changed through the years.
‘There have been similar false claims – repeatedly, for years. The stories continue to change and expand each time – always about the same events,’ attorney Ron Wilkinson told ProPublica.
‘The children are being maltreated by their mother. It is heartbreaking,’ he said. ‘All that is hoped for is that the children can recover from the damage their mother has inflicted upon them.’
A reunification therapist who worked with Ty and Brynlee, Michelle Jones, agreed, saying their claims were a ‘false narrative.’ Of the DCFS ruling, she told ProPublica it was possible the ‘sometimes they accidentally make a substantiation.’
In 2019, a forensic psychologist Monica D. Christy was brought on to examine the case. She ruled that ‘at the very least’ Larson had behaved in an ‘unusual and inappropriate’ way.
‘Whether or not these were sexually-motivated actions and constitute child sexual abuse is for the Court to decide,’ she said in her findings.
The $830,000 Utah home where Ty and Brynlee have barricaded themselves in their bedroom
Jessica Zhart and her children’s father split in 2012 and initially had an amicable relationship
Judge Pullman ruled in favor of Larson’s parental alienation claim, characterizing it as a ‘campaign’ waged by Zhart.
He called the allegations against Larson an ‘abuse narrative,’ and ordered that the kids partake in ‘reunification therapy.’ He also gave custody of Ty and Brynlee over to their father, saying it was the ‘only way to recover the children from this psychological battlefield.’
But he also ruled Larson could not have unsupervised time with the kids, and that they must live at a relative’s home until the situation was further resolved.
Ty said the claims his mother had planted a false narrative were ‘100 percent fake – and if you don’t see that you’re as blind as a bat.’
Many watching the case from the outside agree, and last week a group of about 50 demonstrated against the ruling on the steps of the Utah capital.
A spokesperson from the court told ProPublica ‘I know Judge Pullan spent many, many hours going through evidence and testimony before he made his ruling.’
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