A 14-year-old girl, who allegedly suffered constant torture and abuse at the hands of her parents, frightened her father because he thought she had the devil in her, according to court documents filed Thursday.

Minerva Lopez, 32, was charged with 16 counts of child abuse, and her husband, Porfirio Olivas-Lopez, 38, was charged with 11 counts of child abuse for allegedly beating the girl.

Most of the abuse, according to a criminal complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court, was done by Lopez, who readily admitted to town of Madison police Detective Robb Hale that from April to September she beat the girl with a broomstick, a metal rod, a frying pan and other objects.

Hale said in an interview that this was the most severe case of child abuse he's ever investigated. He called it "highly likely" that more charges will be filed against the couple.

Lopez also admitted scalding the girl with hot water, choking her, cutting her wrist with a kitchen knife and biting her face, the complaint states. When he saw the girl, Hale wrote in the complaint, she was covered virtually head to toe in bruises of varying ages and bloody wounds.

Hale said the 14-year-old is "safe and is getting better" in a local hospital.

Olivas-Lopez told Hale that he hit the girl with his hands and fists on her body but never hit her head. He said he sometimes kicked and choked the girl, lifting her off the floor by her neck, the complaint states.

Lopez and Olivas-Lopez never said why they beat the girl. Lopez attributed it at times to stress, while she said her husband claimed that the girl had "the devil in her." On some occasions, she said, Olivas-Lopez would say, "Help me, help me, get a cross because (the girl) has the devil in her."

Olivas-Lopez told Hale that the girl sometimes scared him and that he took her to church four times a week, the complaint states. Asked if he really thought she had the devil in her, Olivas-Lopez told Hale, "She don't have the devil inside. I think she is just scared."

Hale said Thursday he doesn't know why the couple abused the girl or focused their abuse mostly on her. He said he is investigating possible abuse of some of the couple's other children.

Lopez was jailed on $32,000 bail and Olivas-Lopez is being held on $24,000 bail. He is also now serving a jail sentence for a prior drunken driving conviction and has an immigration detainer. He also faces a felony charge for failing to report for that sentence in August. He still owes $224 in fines and court costs for a disorderly conduct conviction from last year from a domestic incident involving his wife.

According to the complaint:

Hale was sent to the family's apartment on Pheasant Ridge Trail on Sept. 25 after social workers had gone to the apartment and found the emaciated 14-year-old girl in a closet with some type of head injury.

The girl also had broken fingers on her right hand and a broken right kneecap.

The head injury, Hale later learned from Lopez, happened on Sept. 24, after police had come to the apartment because of a hang-up call to 911. The girl denied making the call, Lopez told Hale, but Lopez said she blamed the girl and hit her on the head three to four times with a metal broomstick handle.

When the girl cried, Lopez said, she told the girl, "Please don't make any more noises, please, because they are going to take my baby away."

Only two weeks earlier, Lopez had given birth to another daughter. In all, she and Olivas-Lopez have five children — the 14-year-old girl, an 8-year-old girl, boys ages 5 and 3, and the infant girl.

Asked why she did not take the 14-year-old girl to the hospital after the broomstick beating, Lopez said, "Because of the fear I've always had that this was going to happen," referring to her arrest.

Dr. Barbara Knox, UW Children's Hospital child-abuse expert, said the girl would potentially suffer from life-long disabilities because of the injuries she sustained during the abuse. Those disabilities could include permanent disfigurement and limb immobility. The girl also appeared to be malnourished, she said.

One of Knox's diagnoses included "serial child torture."

Olivas-Lopez also admitted that he hit his 8-year-old daughter with a plastic clothes hanger.

Dane County Human Services had long suspected that the 14-year-old girl was being abused by her mother, the criminal complaint said. In April, the girl came to school with injuries to her face, which she told a friend had been inflicted by her mother. But she told a social worker that her brother had thrown something at her.

Other injuries reported in June, also said by a friend to be injuries inflicted by the girl's mother, were also given innocent explanations by the girl. The friend said that the girl's mother told her that if she reported the injuries, her mother would strangle her. Further action could not be taken by Human Services because it could not substantiate the cause of the injuries.

Human Services officials Thursday declined comment citing state and federal confidentiality laws.

When police interviewed Lopez on Sept. 26, she said she had planned to go back to Mexico because her husband was wanted on a warrant here and she did not want him to be locked up. She was waiting until after her baby was born to return, she said.

Lopez said her husband did not want to return to Mexico.