Girl May Have Been Sexually Assaulted
By Mary McKee and Patrick McGee, Star-Telegram Staff Writers
Originally published in the Star-Telegram, June 15, 2001
HUTCHINS — Police investigating a young girl's solitary confinement in a closet were looking into new allegations Thursday: possible sexual abuse by her parents.
Hutchins Police Chief Gregory Griffin said allegations surfaced after the 8-year-old was rescued from the closet Monday. Her parents are already jailed on charges of injury to a child in connection with the girl's confinement, perhaps for years, police said.
On Thursday, investigators interviewed the 8-year-old, who is severely malnourished and hospitalized in serious condition, and her five siblings. Today they plan to execute a search warrant at the trailer where they lived, Griffin said.
Both parents are being investigated in connection with the sexual abuse, and all six children are considered possible victims, Griffin said.
"There is a possibility at this time that there may be something other than injury to a child," Griffin said. "We are looking into information we received as to allegations of sexual abuse."
The girl's mother, Barbara Atkinson, 30, and stepfather, Kenneth Atkinson, 33, were arrested this week on charges of injury to a child after the girl was discovered in the filthy 4-by-8 closet.
The couple are jailed at Lew Sterrett Justice Center in Dallas on $100,000 bail each. Kenneth Atkinson also has a probation violation that carries no bail.
The girl remains hospitalized at Children's Medical Center in Dallas in serious but stable condition, said Stacey Ladd, a spokeswoman for Child Protective Services. She is expected to be hospitalized for a long time because she has many medical problems related to physical neglect, Ladd said.
The girl's situation has been especially heartbreaking for Bill and Sabrina Kavanaugh, a Canton couple who cared for her after she was born in 1993. They tried to adopt her but were forced to return the child to Barbara Atkinson when the girl was 2 because needed court papers were never filed. Charles Karruth, the Kavanaughs' attorney at the time, did not file for a court date to formally take away Barbara Atkinson's rights to the child, said the Kavanaughs and James Jenkins, the couple's current attorney.
Jenkins, of Waxahachie, said the Kavanaughs were displeased with Karruth and fired him. Jenkins was hired as their new lawyer. Karruth has since died.
After 60 days, the law allowed Atkinson to revoke the affidavit she signed relinquishing her parental rights. Judge Lynn Markham had no choice but to return the girl to her, lawyers said.
Dallas lawyer Kamela Cromer-Wilkinson, who was appointed by the court in 1993 to represent the child's interests during the custody dispute, said she believes the judge thought "the child's best interests were with the Kavanaughs, but the court's hands were tied based on the fact that Barbara's rights hadn't been terminated."
The judge's decree awarding the child to Barbara Atkinson, signed Jan. 25, 1995, stated: "The court finds that appointment of the child's mother, Barbara Calhoun Jenkins, as managing conservator will not significantly impair the child's physical health or emotional development."
Markham, who is listed as a lawyer in private practice in Crockett, could not be reached to comment Thursday.
Bill Kavanaugh, 62, and Sabrina Kavanaugh, 37, said they still don't understand why Karruth did not follow through with filing the paperwork.
"The day we got temporary custody, he could have terminated her parental rights," Sabrina Kavanaugh said. "But he didn't. I have no earthly clue why. We thought we had adopted her. We thought she was ours."
Cromer-Wilkinson said she recommended the child stay with the Kavanaughs.
"They just had a beautiful room for the baby, and they had a life planned for her that would have included all of the things that she subsequently failed to have," said Cromer-Wilkinson, who visited both homes.
Cromer-Wilkinson said she doesn't remember specifics of the home visits, but she said she was left with an unmistakable impression that the Kavanaughs would have made better parents.
"That's what strikes me most, how much they wanted this baby," she said. "They were desperate. They wanted this baby; they loved this infant."
In a 1993 report to the court, Cromer-Wilkinson described Sabrina Kavanaugh as "a nurturing individual who I believe loves the baby more than anything else in her life."
Her report describes Barbara Atkinson as "a nice young woman who is capable of being warm and sincere but is also capable of being unstable and insecure." Cromer-Wilkinson noted that Barbara Atkinson was dependent on her parents and Kenneth Atkinson, then her boyfriend, to provide help in caring for the girl and an older daughter.
Atkinson told social worker Elva Kirk Chapman in 1993 that she had been in the custody of the Texas Department of Human Services until she was adopted at age 3 by Doris and James D. Calhoun. Barbara Atkinson said she maintained contact with her mother, who gave birth to her at age 13. She also said her mother had a 10th-grade education and was a nurse's aide, although she was not then employed.
Chapman's report states that Atkinson felt indebted to relatives of the Kavanaughs who had given her a home and pressured her to give up the child for adoption. Atkinson "recalls being told over and over again that she was 'doing the right thing' and how happy she was making the Kavanaughs."
Jenkins said the only chance of keeping the baby with the Kavanaughs was to argue that the girl was in imminent danger.
"I do remember what we considered to be some unexplained bruises, injuries, lack of warmth, nurturing, some indications of neglect, diaper rash, dirtiness, things like that. I cannot remember all the details," Jenkins said.
However, that evidence apparently was not enough to persuade Markham, Jenkins said.
"He could have decided that there was evidence of imminent danger to the child, but he did not find that," he said. "The mother said everything right in court, and she had a good lawyer, too."
The Kavanaughs said they were devastated by losing the girl and still hope to adopt her. Although police said the apparent reason for the girl being kept in the closet was because she had eating and behavioral problems, the Kavanaughs said she was a happy, healthy child under their care.
On Thursday, the couple sifted through photographs of the girl that were piled on a kitchen counter. One of the photos shows a cheerful little girl with shiny brown hair and blue eyes sitting next to a Minnie Mouse stuffed animal. Another shows the chubby girl ready for bath time with baby powder, Ivory soap and a rubber duck toy.
"It was wonderful. We spent every moment we could with her. We took her everywhere," Sabrina Kavanaugh said. "We just loved her. We love that little girl more than life itself."
