A 12-year-old Middletown girl testified Tuesday how she was locked in her parents’ basement isolated from most of her family, and when she misbehaved, was fed peanut butter sandwiches, stood in the corner for hours, slapped and spanked and held under a cold shower.

When the girl, whom The Journal is not identifying, walked into Butler County Common Pleas Court, she looked to her left at the four TV cameras and eight media members sitting in the jury box, and at her parents, who were sitting with their attorneys at two tables. A few times during her testimony, she made eye contact with her father and stepmother, and stumbled over her answers in front of visiting Judge Matthew Crehan.

Her parents, Shawn, 40, and Joanna Blackston, 37, were charged with child endangering for allegedly locking the girl — one of their eight children from a blended family — in the basement of their Philadelphia Avenue home from June 18 to July 3, the day Butler County Children Services and Middletown police were called to investigate allegations of abuse.

The Blackstons were arrested on July 6 at a Sharonville motel.

They had faced felony kidnapping and unlawful restraint charges, but those were dismissed by the Butler County grand jury. They’re out on $25,000 bonds. In September, they plead not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of child endangering. The second of the three-day trial begins at 9 a.m. today.

The attorney for Shawn Blackston, Tim Upton, and for Joanna Blackston, Ched Peck, described a different scene in the home on Philadelphia, just off Central Avenue. They said the 12-year-old wouldn’t obey her parents, destroyed her clothes, bedding and toys in the basement, and once threatened to kill her 2- and 3-year-old siblings.

A case worker from children services asked that the attorneys, Josh Muennich, assistant prosecutor for Butler County, and the Blackstons representatives, stand at the podium and direct their questions to the girl. Judge Crehan pulled up a chair and sat close to the girl so he could hear her answers.

Throughout most of her testimony, she cuddled a teddy bear and rocked in her chair. She said she had to ask to go to the bathroom that was located upstairs and her parents gave her only two or three pieces of toilet paper. When she was “bad,” she was forced to eat peanut butter sandwiches, while her siblings ate home-cooked meals or fast-food carry-out, she said.

A few times, she admitted, she and her 15-year-old sister, who lived in the basement, broke out a window and snuck out of the house. They found food in the neighbor’s trash can and on the ground and returned to the basement. The girl said on four occasions she brought the same stray cat into the basement, which her parents forbade, and they punished her.

Earlier, Alisa Muncy, an intake worker for eight years with children services, said the girl’s hair was cut “military-style” when she was removed from the home on July 3. Peck confirmed with the girl that her head was shaved because she got lice while in school, and her stepmother bought her hats to cover her head.

During cross examination, Upton asked the girl if she ever took extra clothes outside and changed before school without her parents’ permission. She said her parents thought some of her clothes were “inappropriate.”

The girl was the fourth and final person who testified, following Muncy and two of the girl’s older sisters.

In opening statements, assistant prosecutor Kim Schneider showed the judge and the visitors a picture of the girl just after she was removed from the custody of her father and stepmother. The picture showed a dirty, 5-foot-tall pale girl with sunken eyes, Schneider said. She said she weighed 74 pounds.

She asked the judge to “hold them (the Blackstons) responsible.”

Since being removed from the home, the girl has gained 32 pounds, what Schneider called “astounding.”

The basement where the girl stayed for nearly a month had no heat, air conditioning or fan, and had a covered glass block window, which Muncy said was in “stark contrast” to the upstairs bedrooms of the other children that had bookshelves, air conditioning, video games and television sets.

Peck said the girl was locked in the basement because she allegedly stole things from her brothers and sisters. He also said the girl used a pair of scissors to cut up her bedding and clothes.