Story highlights The toilet was full of feces

The door was locked from the outside; the light switch duct taped in the off position

(CNN) It's one of the worst cases of child abuse you'll ever hear about: a young boy, locked in a dank, dark bathroom for a least a year. And the person accused of putting him there? His own mother.

Authorities say Brandy James locked her son, now 12, in an upstairs bathroom in her Toquerville, Utah, home for perhaps as long as two years.

When they found him, the boy was so severely malnourished, he weighed just 30 pounds.

The conditions inside, as laid out in an indictment, are truly upsetting : The toilet bowl was so full of feces that there didn't appear to be any water inside. The door was locked from the outside. The light switches were duct taped in the off position, so the boy probably sat in darkness all the time. The boy so weak when he was found that he wouldn't have been able to stand up and take the duct tape off on his own.

Empty bean cans and a spoon were found in the shower, where the drain was covered with duct tape.

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