Wake County mom kept teen in dog kennel, dad raped child, court records say
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- Rachel Galasso and Lacy Hocutt Jr. were arrested Wednesday.
- Galasso is accused of child neglect, while Hocutt is accused of statutory rape.
- A teen in the home was allegedly kept in a dog kennel and underfed.
A Wake County couple was arrested Wednesday on allegations of serious child abuse and assault, including that a teenager was kept in a dog kennel and found covered in feces.
Rachel Leigh Galasso, 33, is charged with two counts of negligent child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury and two counts of negligent child abuse resulting in serious physical injury, court records show.
Lacy Douglas Hocutt Jr., 34, is charged with three counts of statutory rape of a child 15 or younger and six counts of statutory rape of a child by an adult.
Galasso is accused of neglecting four of her children so severely that they will require ongoing medical care, according to her arrest warrant. The allegations include:
- That she neglected a teenager’s scoliosis “to the point that she is now beyond the point that she can be treated with surgical intervention and will have to suffer from the condition for the remainder of her life.”
- That she improperly fed her son until he was underweight to a life-threatening extent and kept him in a dog kennel until he “was found covered in feces” and had to be treated for an E. coli infection.
- That she neglected two of her children’s dental care until both children had to have adult teeth removed, will need dental treatment for the foreseeable future and cannot chew without pain.
It’s not clear from court documents when the alleged abuse again, though the Wake County Sheriff’s Office listed the incidents on Galasso’s arrest warrant as occurring Feb. 12.
Hocutt, meanwhile, is accused of raping one of the children for at least four years, beginning as early as October 2017, according to his arrest warrant.
Arrest records list the couple as both being arrested at a Raleigh motel, though court records show Hocutt is banned from contacting Galasso after he pleaded guilty in February to assaulting her.
Hocutt shoved Galasso, injured her hands by grabbing and squeezing them, damaged her cellphones and tablet and threatened to shoot her if she called the police in a Nov. 8 incident, according to the arrest warrant. He was arrested Jan. 23 after he violated the terms of his pretrial release by returning to Galasso’s home, purportedly to speak with their daughter, court documents state.
In that case, Hocutt was sentenced to 100 days in Wake County’s misdemeanant confinement program and ordered to attend a domestic violence abuser treatment program. He was also placed on a year of supervised probation. It’s unclear if he’d completed that treatment at the time of his arrest.
Hocutt and Galasso remained in the Wake County jail without bail as of Thursday morning. They’re separately set to appear in court for the first time Thursday afternoon.
This story was originally published April 2, 2026 at 9:31 AM.
