Indictment Describes Hutchins Abuse Case
Police: Girl spent months in closet
By Tim Wyatt
Originally published in The Dallas Morning News, July 24, 2001
A Dallas County grand jury indicted the mother and stepfather of an 8-year-old Hutchins girl on felony child abuse charges Monday. The pair kept the girl in a closet for months, occasionally leaving her with crackers and water while the family went out of town, police say.
According to a Hutchins police report filed Monday with two felony indictments for serious bodily injury to a child, Barbara Atkinson, 30, and Kenneth Ray Atkinson, 33, told police that abuse of the girl began more than four years ago and was triggered by the girl's eating disorder.
The Atkinsons, who were arrested June 11 after neighbors reported they saw the girl huddled in a bedroom closet and covered in human waste and lice, are being held at Lew Sterrett Justice Center in lieu of $100,000 bail. If convicted of the first-degree felony, they face a sentence of 5 to 99 years or up to life in prison.
Steve Tokoly, felony trial bureau chief for the Dallas County district attorney, said that prosecutors have not decided whether Ms. Atkinson or Mr. Atkinson will be tried first. An investigation is continuing into allegations of sexual abuse, he said.
Brad Lollar, Ms. Atkinson's court-appointed attorney, could not be reached for comment Monday.
Mr. Atkinson's defense attorney, Malcolm Dade, said he has not seen the indictment or his client's statement to police, but he said that Mr. Atkinson couldn't tolerate the girl's living conditions any longer and let a neighbor in to see her.
"Look at the context of this," he said. "This is a child that was given away by her mother. She wasn't his child, but when police came to check on the girl, he was the one feeding her."
According to Hutchins police records, the Atkinsons said they kept the girl in their bedroom closet for months.
"Barbara has a problem, and I can't handle it anymore," Mr. Atkinson is quoted by police as telling neighbor Jeanie Rivers, whose husband called police. Mr. Atkinson told the Riverses that Ms. Atkinson could not handle the girl's eating disorder and her soiling herself.
The Atkinsons also told authorities that abuse of the girl began shortly after Ms. Atkinson "lost a child during birth" in January 1997.
"She [Ms. Atkinson] said the child would eat all the time and not stop," the report said. "[The girl] would eat until she was sick."
During interviews with family members, police learned that the other five children in the family had been told by Ms. Atkinson to tell relatives their sister was living with a woman named Carol in Waxahachie. Police said there is no such woman.
The report also said the family left the girl alone, locked in the mobile home's closet, at least twice this year. They told police they left girl alone for two days in late March while they traveled to Louisiana for a funeral. And on June 2, while the family went camping in Van Zandt County, the girl was left alone with some "Ritz crackers, [a] gallon of water and some leftovers," the report stated.
Police took the girl to Children's Medical Center to be treated for malnutrition. She was 3 feet tall and weighed 25 pounds. The remaining five children in the family were taken to Child Protective Services and placed in foster homes.
With foster parents
Last week, the girl was released from Children's Medical Center and placed with foster parents Bill and Sabrina Kavanaugh, who had tried to adopt the girl when she was an infant but were ordered to return her when their attorney failed to file for termination of Ms. Atkinson's parental rights.
The girl is adapting well at the Kavanaughs' small ranch in Van Zandt County and may start kindergarten in a year, said David Cole, the Kavanaughs' attorney. When the girl was found, she told authorities she was 2 years old and did not know what the sun and a television were.
Authorities have declined to offer further details on the girl's "remarkable progress" in the weeks after she was removed from the trailer.
"We are asking that the public understand the child needs some privacy," said Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner. "Right now, we'd like the family to have an opportunity to get to know each other."
Ms. Meisner said last week, after the girl went home with the Kavanaughs, that the girl "has made remarkable progress." She declined to be more specific.
The girl's court-appointed attorney has asked officials and the couple not to comment on her condition.
"It's not a good idea for them to be as visible as they were," Mr. Cole said. "One thing that's been taken from her is her childhood. They have to be sure to give that back to her."
The couple, who have no children together, became licensed foster parents and have the support of CPS in their adoption effort. It's unclear whether a judge might let the Kavanaughs adopt the girl before the standard six-month wait since she previously lived with them.
The Kavanaughs have already talked with local school officials about kindergarten next year, Mr. Cole said. He declined to give more details about the talks with school officials.
"Everybody has been so amazingly generous" to the girl and the Kavanaughs that they "feel an obligation to tell everybody" she's doing well, the attorney said. "She was extremely excited about going home, and everybody's doing great."
The child has received so many gifts from across the country that CPS has shared them with "other children who've been abused and neglected, and whose stories have not reached the media," Ms. Meisner said.
A hearing on the status of the girl and her five siblings is scheduled Aug. 3 in juvenile court. No hearings have been set in the Atkinsons' criminal cases.
