A half-naked woman was allegedly tortured and chained up in the backyard of a Texas home for months — leading to the arrest of five people who allegedly starved and shot at the defenseless victim with BB guns.

The Austin Police Department responded to a home on the south side of the city at around 9 a.m. on Oct. 30 after a 911 call was made regarding a woman screaming for help and handcuffed to metal exercise equipment in the backyard, according to a press release.

Officers arrived to find the unnamed woman suffering from severe injuries, naked from the waist down, and shackled to a punching bag stand.

The first responders quickly sprang into action and attempted to free the woman, but “due to the conditions of the restraints,” they had to call in the Austin Fire Department to bring special equipment to cut through the metal.

“The woman showed signs of physical distress and had visible injuries consistent with prolonged restraint,” police said.

As they worked to free the woman, five adults inside the home noticed what was happening and tried to flee, but were immediately caught and detained.

Police also found two small children living at the home who were placed in the care of Child Protective Services for safety and support.

The suspects — Michelle Garcia, 51, Crystal Garcia, 21, Mache Carney, 32, Juan Pablo Castro, 30, and Maynard Lefevers, 21 — had allegedly held the victim captive for months, police said.

The victim told investigators that she’d been friends with Michelle Garcia, but stated that the group “at some point, they decided they no longer liked her,” and the five decided to keep her as a captive, according to an affidavit obtained by the Austin American-Statesman.

She said she was forced to live outside for weeks and beaten whenever she tried to flee. It’s unclear when the victim was taken captive and exactly how many months she was held.

Detectives said the woman was fed just one plate of food a day and shackled to a metal exercise stand — sometimes with both wrists locked behind her.

Michelle Garcia allegedly told investigators she limited the woman to one meal a day because she thought the victim had gotten “chunky.”

However, investigators said the woman appeared severely malnourished.

The victim also said that the night before being found, her pants slipped down and she “got in trouble.” She was then shot with a BB gun, cuffed to a backyard stand and left there half-naked overnight as “punishment” while temperatures plunged into the 40s, the affidavit revealed.

During her captivity, she sustained extensive injuries, including open wounds, severe swelling of the wrists, loss of tissue from her hands and feet, widespread scarring from BB gun pellets, and significant facial trauma.

After being transported to a local hospital, doctors determined her injuries matched weeks of torture and restraint. Scans also found a BB was lodged in her right eye.

Castro allegedly told police he shot the woman with an electric rifle-style BB gun because he “didn’t want to touch her.”

He also allegedly admitted that when he would get home from work, he would grab the BB gun from his closet, and “chase her around the yard,” expressing that he “f–king hates her,” according to the affidavit.

One of the children found at the home — a four-year-old boy identified as Castro’s son — said his dad shot the woman whenever she was “bad,” and that his mom, Carney, usually stood by and watched.

All five suspects were arrested and charged with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault, injury to the elderly or disabled, and unlawful restraint. They are all currently locked up at the Travis County Jail on $305,000 bail.

Carney and Michelle Garcia return to court on Nov. 18 and 21, while Crystal Garcia, Castro, and Lefevers are set to appear on Dec. 15.

The case remains under investigation.

Austin voters soundly rejected Proposition Q, the controversial city-backed plan to raise more than $100 million in property tax revenue to pay for homeless services and other city projects.

Taken at face value, the measure was simple: It asked Austinites to voluntarily increase their city property tax bills to pay for what the city deemed essential services. But that was a tall order for some.

The measure was a lightning rod in a typically sleepy off-year election cycle, with more than 100,000 voters casting ballots on Election Day alone.

Now, Prop Q’s failure could push Austin City Council to temper its spending habits.

Save Austin Now, the primary political opponent of the measure, organized a broad coalition of Austin voters to reject Prop Q. The political action committee argued it would make Austin less affordable for property owners, workers, renters and businesses.

At a campaign watch party Tuesday night, Austin attorney Adam Loewy, who gave $10,000 to the campaign and donated a billboard to Save Austin Now, said the measure’s failure proves “enough is enough,” and that citizens want City Council members to pare back spending. Loewy cited recent expenses on a $1.1 million logo and recent trips abroad by council members, among other expenses.

“The spending must stop. We do not need more taxes, and this City Council needs to get the message to get their house in order,” he said. “Quit with the million dollar logos. Quit with the trips to Japan. Quit with wasting the taxpayer money.”

Mayor Kirk Watson agreed, to a point, saying council members “need to give voters reason to trust us.” Watson said the rejection is a clear mandate to reexamine the costs and needs of city-funded programs.

“We should meet the voters’ mandate with a coherent, straightforward budget process that focuses on basic services and basic budgeting,” he said in a statement Tuesday. “At a time when people are losing faith in all levels of government, including local government, as evidenced by the election outcome, our city government needs to show it can act in a thoughtful, structured way.”

Council Member Marc Duchen, the lone vote against the tax rate election plan, said the rejection was “a referendum on trust” in a statement and echoed Watson’s call for a clear-headed appraisal of spending at City Hall.

“My colleagues and I have an opportunity to restore our constituents’ faith in local government, and I hope we seize it,” he said.

AUSTIN — Texans are voting Tuesday to add rights for parents who find themselves at odds with the state or other governmental entities over how to raise their children, making Texas the first state to add parental rights to its founding document if Proposition 15 passes.

If approved, the new language will be added to Article 1 of the Texas Constitution, also known as the Bill of Rights. That’s the section that lays out the rights and protections for Texans, including limits on the government’s power, and the individual freedoms of speech, religion and the right to bear arms, among others.

What does the amendment say?

“To enshrine truths that are deeply rooted in this nation’s history and traditions, the people of Texas hereby affirm that a parent has the responsibility to nurture and protect the parent’s child and the corresponding fundamental right to exercise care, custody, and control of the parent’s child, including the right to make decisions concerning the child’s upbringing.”

Would it change any state laws?

There is no indication that this will substantially change any state or federal laws, including those against child abuse or other protections, attorneys who support the bill have said, if it’s approved. Instead, it gathers up rights that have already been established over a century in state and U.S. Supreme Court case law, the bill’s author said.

Did any lawmakers vote against it?

Yes, but most didn’t. For an amendment to be presented to voters, it has to gain at least two-thirds support in the Legislature, so this one had bipartisan support. The amendment won unanimous support in the Senate but was opposed by two dozen Democrats in the House, many of them members of the far-left Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus who warned that laws spotlighting the rights of the parents often ignore the needs of children to be heard and protected by the government — often from their own parents.

Is this a new issue?

No. State leaders in Republican-dominated Texas have been pushing for more laws like this for years. In 2019, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a report defending parental rights against state interference at the request of a Republican House chairman. In 2023, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed a package of legislation intended to strengthen parents’ voices in education, including giving them access to curriculum and library materials.

What was the first parental rights decision in the U.S.?

Notable federal cases that have contributed to parental-rights precedents go as far back as 1923, when the U.S. Supreme Court established a parent’s right to guide their children’s education “suitable to their station in life.” In 1925, a century ago, the court cemented that right with a precedent-setting opinion: “The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”

What has happened since then?

Several additional cases. In 1972, Wisconsin vs. Yoder established the right to raise your child in the religion of your choosing. In the early ‘80s, the court required a higher burden of proof to terminate parental rights. In the 2000 decision Troxel vs. Granville, the court connected parental rights to the 14th Amendment protections of privacy.

In 1979, the court’s majority opinion summed up its position this way:

“The statist notion that governmental power should supersede parental authority in all cases because some parents abuse and neglect children is repugnant to American tradition.”