A 10-YEAR-OLD GIRL who was found suffocated in a storage box in Arizona two weeks ago was locked into the container as punishment for taking an ice pop without permission, police there have said.

Reuters reports that Ame Deal was found dead in the container over two weeks ago, and was originally thought to have climbed into the container herself in an elaborate game of hide and seek.

But the four adults with whom she lived – her aunt, grandmother, cousin and cousin’s husband – have now been arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder after the latter pair confessed to having locked the girl into the plastic storage bin.

The grandmother and aunt later admitted to having locked her in the bin on previous occasions.

Police said the girl had first been ordered to perform gruelling physical exercises for over an hour before she was locked into the storage chest. She was found the following morning wearing soiled clothes, with marks on her knee from trying to barge her way out of the bin.

“This child died at the hands of those who were supposed to love and care for her,” one police detective said. “This case has turned the stomachs of some of our most seasoned detectives.”