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A 15-year-old boy from Utah rose to TikTok fame after he and his sister barricaded themselves inside a room at their mother’s house 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 house in Salt Lake City to avoid moving back in with their father, Brent Joel Larson. In 2018, the Utah Division of Children and Family Services discovered that Larson had sexually and emotionally abused them as young children.
But Larson accused Ty and Brynlee’s mother, Jessica Zhart, of fabricating the accusations and training them to make them in a process known as ‘alienation from parents’, according to ProPublica.
Although the American Psychiatric Association and many legal entities do not recognize parental alienation as legitimate, IIn January, Judge Derek P. Pullan ruled that Zhart was indeed using him against the father of his children and ordered them to meet with him.
Ty has insisted that the allegations are true and that he fears for his life from his father. In response, he barricaded himself and Brynlee in his bedroom and, in addition to posting TikToks about the situation, has been live-streaming on Twitch 24 hours a day so viewers can “stand guard” over them.
Ty Larson, left, broadcasts live on TikTok from a barricaded room. Police have attempted to return him and his sister, Brynlee Larson, to the custody of his father, who they say he sexually abused them.
On January 10, Ty posted his first TikTok in which he shared his father’s abuse allegations against him and his sister, explaining that two days earlier, the couple decided to lock themselves in their bedroom for their own safety.
“I have to barricade my bedroom, my own choice, to keep myself safe because the court system isn’t trying to save us, no one is trying to keep us safe,” he said in the video. I’m the one who’s going to have to choose my own safety. And this is just to entertain the police, nothing will stop them, this is just entertainment.’
“We are terrified to go to school, we are terrified to leave the house, we are terrified to even leave this room,” she added. “I am afraid that my father will kill me if they send me because of the threats he has made to me and my family if I tell anyone.”
Since then, the two have remained in the room with a wooden board nailed to the door while their mother provides them with food. Initially, they would sneak out to use the bathroom, but have since cut through the bedroom closet wall so they could access the bathroom without going into a common area of the house.
In his order removing Ty and Brynlee from the home, Judge Pullman accused Zhart of perpetuating the situation by continuing to “wash the children’s clothes and bring food to the barricaded room.”
“Children work under the misperception that they are in the driver’s seat and are free to determine when, where, and on what terms parenting time will take place,” she wrote. ‘They are not.’
Brynlee Larson, in the custody of her father, who they say sexually abused themBrynlee makes ramen in the bathroom sink. Her brother blocked the bathroom door and cut a hole in the wall (seen just behind Brynlee) to connect it to her bedroom.
Ty and Brynlee Larson on a GoFundMe page shared by their mother Jessica Zhart. Both allege that his father sexually abused them when they were children.
Zhart and Larson separated in 2012, but initially remained friendly over their children.
But when he was 11 in 2018, Zhart took Ty to a pediatrician to treat 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, claiming that his father had dunked his head under water in a bathtub and sprayed water into his anus. Ty said his father did similar things during his childhood, even sometimes coming into his room and petting him while he thought Ty was asleep.
Ty also told investigators that his father said he would “kill his mother and sister” if he told anyone about the abuse.
Brynlee, then seven, said her father had also sexually abused her by fingering and fondling her, ProPublica records show.
That year, the Utah Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) found the allegations to be ‘supported’, as were the police, although Larson was never arrested.
Two other minors also accused Larson of abusing them, according to ProPublica, though DCFS found the claims “unsubstantiated.”
Ty with this mom, Jessica Zhart. She has denied any accusation 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, she accused Zhart of sabotaging her relationship with her children through parental alienation.
She told ProPublica that the term was completely 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 they were accusing me of,” he said. “I’ve seen them create this story about me, and it doesn’t matter what the truth is.”
Larson’s lawyer called the claims “false” and insisted they have constantly changed over the years.
There have been similar false claims, repeatedly, for years. The stories keep changing and expanding each time, always about the same events,” attorney Ron Wilkinson told ProPublica.
‘The children are being mistreated by their mother. It’s heartbreaking,’ she said. ‘All that is hoped is that the children can recover from the damage their mother has inflicted on them.’
A reunification therapist who worked with Ty and Brynlee, Michelle Jones, agreed, calling their claims a “false narrative.” Of the DCFS ruling, she said ProPublica may ‘sometimes inadvertently make a substantiation’.
In 2019, forensic psychologist Monica D. Christy was hired to examine the case. She ruled that “at the very least” Larson had behaved in an “unusual and inappropriate” manner.
“Whether or not these were sexually motivated actions and constitute child sexual abuse is for the Court to decide,” it said in its conclusions.
The $830,000 house in Utah where Ty and Brynlee have barricaded themselves in their bedroom
Jessica Zhart and the father of her children separated in 2012 and were initially on friendly terms.
Judge Pullman ruled in favor of Larson’s parental alienation claim, calling it a “campaign” waged by Zhart.
He called the allegations against Larson an “abuse narrative” and ordered the children to participate in “reunification therapy.” He also turned custody of Ty and Brynlee over to their father, saying it was the “only way to get the children back from this psychological battlefield.”
But it also ruled that Larson could not spend unsupervised time with the children and that they must live with a relative until the situation was resolved.
Ty said the claims that his mother had planted a false narrative were “100 percent false, and if you don’t see it, you’re as blind as a bat.”
Many who are watching the case from the outside agree, and last week a group of about 50 people demonstrated against the ruling on the steps of the Utah capital.
A spokesman for the court told ProPublica: “I know that Judge Pullan spent many, many hours reviewing evidence and testimony before rendering his ruling.”