Wife of man who caged children says she was also a victim

The Las Vegas woman charged with failing to protect her child and six stepchildren from her husband’s abuse says she could not intervene because she was also a victim of his “violent” personality and was “scared for [her] life.”

“I was scared for my life and my other kids and my family,” Amanda Stamper, 33, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal of why she allegedly did not stop her husband, Travis Doss, from abusing her stepchildren and the child they share.

“It’s hard for people to understand that unless you’re in that situation.”

Stamper was arrested alongside Doss, 31, on child abuse charges on June 11, when Stamper called police from a drug store to report that she was scared of her partner, the Review-Journal reported.

Police subsequently found six children – aged 2 through 11 – injured, starving, and alone in their one-bedroom apartment, where two of the older boys were locked in pet kennels.

Stamper is now facing seven counts of child abuse and neglect.

“I was dealing with a monster,” she said in a conversation with 8NewsNow.

“{Doss] would use my children, and my family. Like if I was ever to call the police, like, you know, go find my family and my kids. He’s just really a violent person.”

Stamper testified against her husband at the grand jury hearing, the Review-Journal said.

The would-be musician, who also goes by the rap persona “Trap Montana,” is facing 33 counts of child abuse and two kidnapping charges, in addition to separate charges of sex trafficking and living off sex work earnings through force or threat.

According to Stamper, the couple moved from Atlanta to Las Vegas in January 2018 in order to earn money in the sex work industry.

She added that she felt like she had no choice but to participate in Doss’ schemes, because he would beat her and threaten to take their young child away from her if she refused.

“It’s always been pretty bad. Anytime I tried to stand up for [the children] though he would lash out at me,” she alleged on the stand, according to the Review-Journal.

Despite the charges against her, Stamper continued to insist that she had no part in perpetuating the abuse on the children.

“I’m sorry but I didn’t do it. I had no control over him,” she added to 8NewsNow.

“I just wanted them to be safe in the end…I wanted everybody out of it. I just wanted him incarcerated, I just knew if he was incarcerated that everybody will be safe.”

On the day of their parents’ arrest, investigators spent at least 10 minutes convincing the terrified children to allow them in the apartment, chilling body camera footage shows.

When they gained entry, officers saw the 11-year-old and 9-year-old boy in the dog crate.

The older boy had “two black eyes that were swollen shut, multiple marks and bruises all over his body, and he was emaciated,” according to court documents.

“He hit my face in the cage because I was squished up trying to get out of the cage because I didn’t do anything and I was freaking out,” the preteen told police of his father.

After he was arrested, Doss told police that he believed that child was already dead.

A doctor testified at the grand jury that the boy would have died without immediate medical attention, the Review-Journal reported.

A nurse added that the children were “the worst case of abuse she has seen in 13 years.”

“[The nurse] said they have, quote, ‘like a million marks on them,’” a detective testified at the proceedings. 

In addition to the young child she shares with Doss, Stamper told 8NewsNow that she has two other children who do not live with the family.

She also claims to be pregnant currently, the outlet said.

Both Stamper and Doss appeared briefly in court on Tuesday. Another hearing is set for next week.

The couple’s house of horrors – which they masked through smiling social media photos, including one of the large brood fishing in 2019 – recalls the tragedy of the 13 Turpin children, who were found starved, chained up, and tortured in their parents’ California home in 2018.

After their “rescue,” the siblings – who ranged in age from 2 to 29 – struggled to cope with their troubling past, and even suffered continued abuse in the foster care system.

The parents, David and Louise Turpin, were each sentenced to 25 years to life in prison in 2019.