Stepfather of Locked-up Girl is Charged With Sexual Assault
8-year-old told police she was abused, Hutchins chief says
By Holly Becka and Tim Wyatt
Originally published in The Dallas Morning News, November 6, 2001
The stepfather of a girl found locked in a squalid closet in a Hutchins mobile home was indicted Monday on a new charge-aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Kenneth Ray Atkinson, 33, already faced a first-degree felony indictment accusing him and Barbara Atkinson, the girl's mother, of severely injuring the child by locking her in a closet for months at a time with little food.
Mr. Atkinson now stands accused of sexually abusing the girl in several ways, according to records made public Monday with the new charge. A doctor previously testified that the girl had been sexually mutilated.
Defense lawyer Malcolm Dade, Mr. Atkinson's attorney, declined to address the latest allegations.
"I've just talked to the family, so far," he said. "I think I'll hold off on any further comment until I talk to my client."
Hutchins Police Chief Gregory Griffin said Monday that the additional charge was filed after the 8-year-old girl said she was sexually abused. The chief was unsure when the child spoke about the abuse.
"[The girl] … has made an outcry. Now it's round two of the charges," said Chief Griffin, whose agency headed the investigation after the emaciated girl was found June 11 in a lice-infested closet lined with human waste.
Records show that Mr. Atkinson posted $100,000 bail Oct. 30, releasing him from Lew Sterrett Justice Center to Ellis County sheriff's deputies. As of Monday afternoon, he was being held without bail in Ellis County Jail on a probation-violation charge, accused of writing a bad check, according to jail records.
Mr. Atkinson's indictment on the rape charge, another first-degree felony punishable by up to life in prison, prompted Dallas County authorities to issue a new arrest warrant, records show.
"Sometime today or tomorrow, he'll be taken back to Lew Sterrett," Chief Griffin said.
Mr. Dade said he expected bail to be set after Mr. Atkinson's arraignment on the additional charge. The attorney also said that if Ms. Atkinson were not indicted on a similar sexual-abuse charge, he would push for separate trials for the couple.
If authorities don't file sex-abuse charges against Ms. Atkinson, he said, "I would assume that they're not alleging she's a co-conspirator, so there would be no reason to try them together. But the state does their own thing, and we just have to react to what they do next."
Lead prosecutor Patricia Hogue, who was out of the office Monday, previously filed court papers seeking to try the pair together in January. Brad Lollar, Ms. Atkinson's attorney, has said he would fight for separate trials.
Asked whether Ms. Atkinson faced additional charges, a representative of the district attorney's office said: "There are no additional charges filed against the mother at this time."
However, Stephen Tokoly, the district attorney's felony trial bureau chief, declined to say whether that precluded filing additional charges against Ms. Atkinson.
Mr. Atkinson and his 30-year-old former wife, Ms. Atkinson, were arrested June 11 at their Hutchins mobile home, where they lived with six children. Mr. Atkinson had taken a neighbor to see the abused girl, prompting the woman to tell her husband, who called authorities.
A CPS caseworker previously testified that the oldest child in the Atkinson home believed that Mr. Atkinson was leaving that June night when he contacted the neighbor.
Authorities found the girl sitting at a counter with Mr. Atkinson eating spaghetti. In his statement to police, Mr. Atkinson said the girl's abuse began shortly after Ms. Atkinson lost a child during birth in January 1997.
Mr. Dade has said that his client couldn't tolerate the girl's living conditions any longer and "caused this all to come to light."
In July, after she recovered from surgery, the girl went to live with a Van Zandt County couple who had tried to adopt her at birth. A court forced the couple to return the girl to Ms. Atkinson after their attorney at the time failed to terminate her parental rights.
Officials say the girl has thrived in her new home, gained weight and begun to grow but is at risk of never reaching her potential.
