Santiago Ramirez, Gehovany’s brother, never went to prison, spared because of a mental illness. Neighbors often saw him walking the village streets.

Soon, Gehovany would be, too. The family worried the men would come back, to finish what they started.

“There’s not much we can do,” said Mr. Sasvin Dominguez, sending Lubia’s son on his way with the toy truck. “We don’t have the law in our hands.”

He had no money to move and owned nothing but the house, which the family clung to but could hardly bear. His two sons lived in the United States and had families of their own to support. He hadn’t seen them in years.

“I’m raising my daughters on my own now, four of them,” he said.

He woke each morning at 3 a.m., hiking into the mountains to work as a farm hand. The girls, whose high cheekbones and raven-colored hair resembled their mother’s, no longer went to school. With the loss of her income from selling knickknacks on the street, they couldn’t afford to pay for it.

His youngest daughter especially loved classes: the routine, the books, the chance to escape her circumscribed world. But even she had resigned herself to voluntary confinement. The stares and whispers of classmates — and the teasing of especially cruel ones — had grown unbearable. In town, some residents openly blamed Lubia for what happened. Even her own aunts did.

“There’s no justice here,” said Lubia, who added that she wanted to share her story with the public for that very reason. Her father did, too.