Smiles Abound As Closet Girl Is Adopted

By Mary Mckee, Star-Telegram Dallas Bureau
Originally published in the Star-Telegram, July 16, 2002

DALLAS — The little girl who was the victim of a horrible child abuse case was adopted Tuesday by a Van Zandt County couple.

State District Judge Hal Gaither presided over the brief but joyous proceeding during which Bill and Sabrina Kavanaugh officially became the parents of the girl, now 9.

At the end of the ceremony, which was not open to the public, Gaither gave the girl a large white teddy bear with a red bow.

The adoption marked a happy moment in the girl's heart-rending ordeal.

She was being confined in a closet at her family's mobile home in Hutchins when neighbors found out in June 2001 and told police. When authorities found her, the girl, who was 8, was covered in feces, she had lice, and she weighed 26 pounds and was 3 feet tall.

Her mother, Barbara Atkinson, was convicted of injury to a child in January and was sentenced to life in prison. Her stepfather, Kenneth Atkinson, who also has been charged with aggravated sexual assault in addition to injury to a child, is expected to be tried in September. The Star-Telegram has not identified the girl because authorities have said she was a victim of sexual abuse.

The Kavanaughs had cared for the girl from infancy and wanted to adopt her, but they were forced to give her back to Barbara Atkinson after a legal dispute. At that time, the girl was still a toddler.

On Monday, they beamed as their chubby-cheeked daughter, who now weighs 59 pounds and is 44 inches tall, pushed a yellow plastic truck across the floor at the Dallas office of Child Protective Services.

"It's just great, because she's happy," Bill Kavanaugh said of the adoption. "She's being taken care of. She doesn't want for anything."